The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

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[Illustration: THE GENERALIFFE.]

The Alhambra And The Kremlin.

The South and the North of Europe.

by

Samuel IrenæUs Prime,

Author of “Travels in Europe and the East.”

New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 770 Broadway.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Anson D. F. Randolph and Company, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Press of John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

Bindery of Robert Rutter, 82 and 84 Beekman St., New York.

To

Mrs. E’Louisa L. Prime

This Volume

Is Affectionately Inscribed.

[Illustration: Decorative illustration]

THE South and the North of Europe are contrasted in this volume. Not by any formal comparison of the morals and manners, the institutions and condition of the peoples in different latitudes, but by candid statement and description, I have sought to give a fair view of life as it is in Spain and Scandinavia.

Since the journey was made, the Queen of Spain has fled, and the Emperor of France has perished from among men. But the social life of the nations remains the same from age to age.

The Alhambra is a type of the South. The Kremlin is a symbol of the North. Both of them are fortresses enclosing palaces: the glory of Spain in ruins, the pride of the North in its strength and beauty.

Vague and indefinite ideas of these wonderful edifices, and of the countries they represent, have been entertained by many, who may find in these pages pictures of things as they are, which the writer trusts are faithful and portable.

List Of Illustrations.

The Generaliffe _Frontispiece._

Bridge, Gateway, and Cathedral of Burgos 16

The Cid 17

The Escorial 22

The Royal Palace, Madrid 40

Toledo 54

The Alcazar 59

Cordova 82

Court of Oranges, Cordova 87

The Great Mosque, Cordova 89

“La Geralda,” Seville 93

She wept and told her Beads 96

The Bull-Fight 101

The Picador 106

In the Alameda, at Malaga 118

The Diligence 125

Outer Wall of the Alhambra 130

Portion of a Door 138

The Vermilion Tower 142

The Alhambra 156

Geneva and the Rhone 166

Merle d’Aubigné 167

D’Aubigné’s Birthplace and Residence 169

Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva 171

Castle of Chillon 173

The Lake and City of Geneva 175

Cathedral and Platform at Berne 182

On the Lake of Thun 184

Pilatus, Lake of Lucerne 190

Monument to the Swiss Guard. (_By Thorvaldsen_) 195

Tell’s Chapel, Lake of Lucerne 198

Swiss Horn Blowers 211

Peasants of Eastern Switzerland 212

Female Costumes in Appenzell 217

Death of the Chamois 231

On the Rhine 241

Aix-la-Chapelle 245

Frankfort Dining-Table 269

Polish Peasants 283

Scene at Railway Station 294

A Rainy Day in a Russian City 309

Street Scene in a Russian City 315

A Russian Porter 321

The Kremlin 331

Plan of the Centre of Moskva City 335

The Russo-Greek Service 342

Helsingfors 383

Stockholm Steamers 396

Upsala 413

Costumes of Sweden 421

Roxen Locks 435

Travelling in Carioles in Norway 457

Palace of Frederiksberg 462

A Domestic Scene in Denmark 469

Façade of the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen 471

Portrait of Thorvaldsen. (_By Horace Vernet_) 473

Hamburg 480

Home Again 482

Contents.

-------

Chapter I.

Granada.

Page

Lodgings at the Alhambra.—Restoration.—Webs of Falsehood.—The Sierra Nevada Mountains.—Fruits.—Progress of the Peasantry.—The Moors.—Adam’s Visit to Spain.—Expulsion of the Moors.—Decline of the Empire.— Railroads.—Mines.—Early Settlers.—Iberians.—Phœnicians.—Goths.—Moors.— Waning of the Crescent.—Capture of Cordova.—Flight of the last Moorish King

1

Chapter II.

Out Of France Into Spain.—The Basque Provinces.

Biarritz.—Chateau Eugenie.—Dangerous Coast.—Breakwater.—The Virgin’s Partiality.—Bathing Grounds.—Couriers.—Antanazio.—His Honesty and Zeal.—Crossing the Boundary.—Island of Conference.—Spanish Courtesy.— The Basque Provinces.—Peculiar Customs.—Ancestry.—The Language.— Spanish Stupidity.—La Fayette.—St. Sebastian.—Duke of Wellington’s Sack of the City.—Bull-ring.—Likeness of the Country to Switzerland.— Physique of the Inhabitants.—Productions.—Industries.—Primogeniture.— Tolasa.—Vittoria.—Wellington’s Victory.—Miranda.—Roderick, the last King of the Goths

6

Chapter III.

Burgos.—The Escorial.

A sleepy Town.—Origin of the Name.—Fusion of the Crowns of Leon and Castile.—The Coffer of the Cid.—Swindling a Jew.—Moorish Lies.— Hotels.—A Change of Base.—The Cathedral.—Statues.—Carvings.—Verdict of Charles V. and Philip II.—Devil beating the Railroad.—Carving by Nicodemus.—Miracles.—Castle.—Engineer hoisted by his own Petard.— Burgos Taverns.—Philip II. His Character.—Conception of a Palace, Monastery, and Tomb.—The Escorial.—Dimensions.—St. Lawrence.— Turning-point of his Life.—Description of the Palace.—Death of Philip II.—Mausoleum.—The Sagrario.—A _toe_-tal Loss.—Cellini Crucifix.— Library

15

Chapter IV.

Madrid.—A Sabbath And A Carnival.

A polyglot Valet.—Missionary Schools.—Foreign Chaplains.—The Church _Militant_.—Upper Chamber.—Religious Intolerance.—Inquisition.— Persecution.—Spanish Sabbath.—Devotion.—Infidelity.—The Prado.— Bull-ring.—Wine Shops.—Frolicking.—Dancing.—Cheap Wines.—Carnival.— Costumes.—Politeness.—Maskers.—Ancient Belle.—Hobbling Monk.—Pope.— Natural Goose.—Devil.—Orang-outang.—General Abandon.—Religion and Folly.—Good Humor

29

Chapter V.

Madrid.—Palace.—Bank.—Picture-Gallery.

Napoleon’s Epigram.—Royal Palace.—Cavalry.—Military Parade.—Plains of Castile.—Armory.—Swords of Gonzalo de Cordova, Ferdinand, and Charles V.—Armor of Boabdil.—Revolvers.—Mighty Men of War.—Toledo Blade.— Stables.—Spanish Horses.—Merino Sheep.—Royal Equipage.—Crazy Jane’s Carriage.—Her Effigy.—Mischievous Display.—French Language and Influence.—Slow Coaches.—Cheap Labor.—Architecture.—Banking-house.— Bank of Spain.—Repose of Manner.—Gold at last.—Railroads.— Post-office.—Personal Identity.—Rebel General.—Lost Letters.— Telegraphs.—Progress.—Picture-gallery.—The Immaculate Conception.— Vision of St. Bernard.—Christ sinking under his Cross.—Equestrian Portrait of Charles V.—Titian.—Correggio.—Mary in the Garden.—Blas del Prado.—Hidden Gems.—Murillo.—Material and Ideal Art

39

Chapter VI.

Toledo.—Its Fleas, Landlords, Antiquities, And Lunatics.

Progress.—Hotel Lino.—The wicked Flea.—Easy Manners.—Breakfast.—Model Landlord and Waiters.—Toledo Butter.—City set on a Hill.—Monuments of departed Peoples.—Romance.—Architecture.—Oldest City in the World.— Mythic Founders.—Perfidy of Roderick.—Reign of the Archbishops.— Decline of Power and Glory.—Cathedral.—Descent of the Virgin.—A fair Penitent.—Orthodoxy of the Priesthood.—Burning of the Missals.—The Muzarabe.—The dead Lion better than a living Dog.—Eloquent Epitaph.— Honors paid the Virgin.—The Alcazar.—Derivation of Mango.—Spanish Pride.—Peacocks.—Foreign Impressions.—Moorish Gates.—San Juan de los Reyes.—Thank-offerings.—St. Florinde.—Cave of Hercules.—Legend of the Cid.—Café.—Toledo Blades.—Virtues of the Tagus.—Sword of Boabdil.— Lunatic Asylum.—Don Quixote.—Crazy Editors.—Statistics.—Causes of Insanity.—Spanish Slowness and Temperance.—Sophomores

53

Chapter VII.

La Mancha.—Andalusia.

Smoking.—Cigarettes at Dinner.—Taking Sanctuary.—Retort.—Tobacco Culture.—Cuban Monopoly.—Chewing tabooed.—Early Smoking.—Children and Ladies.—Tobacco Factory.—Cigareras.—Flavored Cigars.—Potash.—Soda.— Opium.—Intemperate Clergyman.—La Mancha.—Don Quixote.—Treeless Landscape.—Sheep.—Corn.—Primitive Ploughing.—Husbandry.— Primogeniture.—Lands of Church and Crown.—Agricultural Schools.— Periodicals.—Sierra Morena Mountains.—Cautious Engineer.—Manjibar.— Pickled Chicken.—Moving on.—Perfumes of Arabia.—Resting-place.— Transatlantic Indigestion.—Andalusia.—Ignorance and Crime.—Government Education.—Statistics.—Salamanca.—Influence of Climate.—Population.— The Aloe and Olive.—Oranges and Lemons.—Hills of Andalusia.—Sheep

69

Chapter VIII.

Cordova.

Cleanliness.—Paved Streets.—Bridge over the Guadalquiver.—Age of the City.—Wholesale Butchery.—Government.—Mosques.—Baths.—Inns.—Schools.— Library.—Rural Fête.—Departed Glory.—Palace of Abdurhama.—Beautiful Evergreens.—Fruits.—Interior of an Ancient House.—Moorish Style.— Cathedral.—Converted Mosque.—Gate of Pardon.—Court-yard.—Orange Grove.—Fountains.—Gold Fish.—Elders in the Gate.—The Mecca of Europe.— Holy Shrine.—Symbolism.—Indulgences.—Bronze Ornaments.—Inscription in Gothic and Arabic.—Dimensions.—Precious Stones.—The Mihrab.—The Kalif’s Oratory.—Mosaics.—Devout Mussulmans.—Chapels.—Etching on Stone.—Impressive Monuments

83

Chapter IX.

Seville, Its Cathedral And Bull-Fights.

Delicious Climate.—Customs.—Exile of the Moors.—Consequent Decay.—The Alcazar.—Barbaric Splendor.—A Christian Kingdom.—Cathedral.—A House of God.—Giant Columns.—High Mass.—Unconscious Worshipper.—Beautiful Women.—Venus-worship.—Port of Seville.—Fruits.—Don Juan.—Barber of Seville.—Murillo’s House.—Mosaics.—Moorish Castle.—_Auto-da-fé._—The Quemadaro.—Field of St. Sebastian.—Circulation of the Bible.—Tower of Gold.—Treasure House.—Prison.—Bins of Gold.—Decline and Fall of Spain.—Demoralizing Influences.—Corruption and Robbery.—Yellow Fever.— Guadalquiver.—Amphitheatre.—A Delicate Lady.—Warlike Husband.—Her Description of a Bull-fight.—The Ring.—Spectators.—Trumpet-blast.— Picadors.—Entrance of the Bull.—Charge.—Horseman.—Terrible Sight.— Chulos.—Banderilleros.—Squibs.—Matador.—Applause.—The Ladies.— Different Tastes.—Squeamish Husband

92

Chapter X.

Seville.

La Caridad.—Art Treasures.—St. John.—Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.— Moses striking the Rock.—Recovery of Pictures at Waterloo.—French Thieves.—Venus de Medici.—Thoughtful Amateur.—Museum Fees.—Guardian Angels of Seville.—Martyrdom.—Murillo’s Pages of the Gospel.—Old Masters.—Decay of Art.—Bull-fighting.—The Season.—Exaggeration.— Curious Development.—Effect on the National Character.—Street-plays.— Feats.—Demoralization.—Spanish Pride.—Morality.—Contrast between the North and South of Europe.—Costume of Andalusia.—Fashion.—Life of the People.—Price of Labor.—Food.—Climate.—Beer.—Wine cheaper than Water.— Sack.—Intemperance.—Physical Circumstances.—Social Burdens.—Beautiful Trait.—Obedience.—Veneration of the Aged

107

Chapter XI.

Malaga.

An ill Wind that blows no Good.—Curious Excuse for Crime.—Old World like the New.—Resort for Invalids.—Genial Clime.—Range of Thermometer.— Mineral Waters.—Sunshine.—Rainfall.—Heavenly Skies.—Advice to Consumptives.—Grapes.—Raisins.—Wine and Oil.—A Sabbath.—Service at the British Consulate.—Mrs. Partington.—English Chaplain.—Sermon.—Narrow Streets.—Sweet Memories of Cologne.—Picturesque Moors.—Cathedral.—High Mass.—Florid Architecture.—Fruits.—Prayer of a Dying Moor.—Florinde.— Chronicles of Washington Irving.—Luxuries of Travel.—Diligences.—Out of Malaga.—Obstinate Mules.—Night.—Mountains.—Setting Sun.—Lovely Scenery.—Orchards.—Armed Guards.—Gentlemen of the Road.—Loja.—Inn.— Flock of Fleas.—A Stimulant.—Setting out for Granada.—Santa Fé.—Its History.—Granada at Last.—In the Grounds of the Alhambra

118

Chapter XII.

The Alhambra.

The Paradise of the West.—Rivers of Eden.—New Damascus.—Granada.—Origin of the Name.—Fruits.—Mountains.—Skies.—Moorish Empire broken.—Zawi Ibu Zeyri.—Alhambra.—Meaning of the Name.—Extension of the Castle.— Original Grandeur.—Its first Prince.—His Improvements.—Roads.— Colleges.—Hospitals.—Canals.—Arts.—Sciences.—Degeneracy.—Intrigues and Murders.—Ruin.—Final Overthrow of Moorish Power.—Ferdinand and Isabella.—Columbus.—Fleas and Cake.—Blessing and Gold.—New World in the West.—Bookstore.—Irving’s Tales.—Gate of Judgment.—Plateau.— Desolation.—Court of Myrtles.—Court of Lions.—Boabdil.—Abencerrages.— Treachery.—Hall of Ambassadors.—Bensaken.—Walking Cyclopedia.— Prudence.—Washington Irving.—Dolores.—Queen’s Garden.—Hall of Two Sisters.—Harem.—Linderaka Gardens.—Queen’s Dressing-room.—Gypsies.— Perfume Bath.—Water Bath.—Governor’s Court.—Bowed Slab.—The Morning Star

129

Chapter XIII.

THE ALHAMBRA (_continued_).

The poor Cobbler of Granada.—Spanish Rule of Living.—Xantippe.—Search for Gold.—Messenger Dove.—Dreams.—Landslip.—Fever cured.—Conversion.— The Watch Tower.—Magic Bell.—Parapanda Mountains.—Reign of Law.—Gift to the Duke of Wellington.—Bloody Pass.—Vega.—Water Gates.—The Last Sigh of the Moor.—His Mother’s Reproof.—Moorish Race.—Political Prisoners.—Birthplace of Eugenie.—The Generaliffe.—Ancient Tree.— Suspected Queen.—Women of Spain.—Sins of Climate

144

Chapter XIV.

Granada.

Troubadour and Gypsy Life.—Dwarf.—Horse.—Fair.—Physique of the gitanos.— Habits.—Habitations.—Moral Principle.—Chastity.—Swindling.— Superstition.—Fortune-tellers.—Credulity.—Trickery.—Parisian Spiritualist.—Gypsy Creed.—Musings.—Causes of Astonishment.—Paintings and Cathedrals.—Unworthy Ambition.—Silence in Church.—Cathedral of Granada.—Chapel Royal.—Tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella.—Tomb of Philip and Crazy Jane.—Obliging Priest.—Fees.—Leaving Granada.—Disguised Thief.—Seizure and Imprisonment.—Out of Granada

155

Chapter XV.

Geneva.—Freyburg.—Berne.

Geneva.—Color of the Rhone.—Cæsar’s Wall.—Cathedral.—Calvin.—Lady Jane Grey.—Rousseau.—Voltaire.—Madame de Stael.—Byron.—Jura.—Mont Blanc.— Celebrities.—Coppet.—Ninon.—St. Protais.—Lisus.—Morges.—Grand Muveran.—Diablerets.—Mont Rosa.—Mont Blanc.—Lausanne.—St. Anne.—Sacred Rat.—Cathedral.—Convention of Reformers.—Gibbon.—Classic Ground.— Chillon.—Bonnivard.—Torture Chamber.—Hotel Byron.—Railroad.—Ice.—Swiss Valleys.—Freyburg.—Suspension Bridge.—Great Organ.—Cathedral.— Wonderful Music: its Power and Sweetness.—Berne.—Morat.—Burgundian Custom.—Public Bears.—Unfortunate Englishman.—Curious Clock.—Market Women.—Federal Palace.—Swiss Cantons.—Bernese Alps.—Thun.—Jungfrau

165

Chapter XVI.

The Brunig Pass.—Lucerne.

Pleasant Ride.—Interlaken.—Lakes Thun and Brienz.—Abendberg.—Faulhorn.— Giesback.—Illumination.—Ascent of the Brunig.—Vale of Meyringen.—Falls of Reichenbach.—Lungern.—Splendid Courage.—Cheap Suffering.—Modern Reformers.—Mount Pilatus.—Myths.—Lucerne.—Population.—St. Leger.— Service.—Crucifix.—A Devotee.—Mass.—Organ.—Cloisters.—Lake Lucerne.— Lion of Lucerne.—Dance of Death.—Striking Scenery.—Gersau.—Brunnen.— Bay of Uri.—Sir James Mackintosh.—Swiss Patriots.—Chapel of Tell.— Cascades.—Fluellen.—Altorf.—Captain Lott

186

Chapter XVII.

The Black Virgin Of Einsiedeln.—Life In Switzerland, Etc.

The Hermit Meinrad.—His Black Virgin.—Murder.—Detective Ravens.— Monastery.—Miracle.—Shrine.—Pilgrims.—Revenue.—A Barefooted Penitent.— Village Church.—Fountain.—Gallery.—Abbot.—Hospitality.—Library.— College.—Monastic Life.—Adieu.—Pleasant Quarters.—Meals.—Hotel Life.— John Bull.—A Charming Couple.—Americans.—A National Feature.—Slang.— Language.—Manners.—An Elegant Lady.—Selfishness.—French and Swiss Railroads.—Improvements.—Accidents.—Accommodations

200

Chapter XVIII.

Canton Appenzell.—Swiss Customs.

Trogen.—Convent.—Memento mori.—Scenery.—Religion.—German Service.— Curious Custom.—Constance.—Martyrs.—Dividing Line.—Remarkable Change.— Cause.—Pillory.—Evening Bell.—Watchman’s Song.—Bridal Custom.—Athletic Sports.—Democracy.—Assembly.—Office Seekers.—Council.—Roads.— Taxation.—Schools.—Foreign Pupils.—Pedestrians.—Moral Culture.— Treatment of Women.—Cows.—Farm Work.—Manufactures.—Mechanics.—God’s Acre.—Graves.—Funeral Ceremonies.—Simplicity.—Lonely Burial.— Unpleasing Custom.—Costumes.—The Upper Classes.—Refinement and Culture.—Manners.—Patriotism.—A Challenge

212

Chapter XIX.

German Watering-Places.—Bingen On The Rhine.

A German Watering-place.—Land of Salt.—Salt Works.—Last of the Barons.— Homburg.—Kursaal.—Palace.—Gaming.—Kreusnach.—Spas.—Salt Springs.— Cure-house.—Kissingen.—Baths.—Cures.—Long Sledge-ride.—Princess of Mecklenburg.—Clerical Postman.—Whey-cure.—Grape-cure.—Rest.— Rheingraffenstein.—Ebernburg.—Relics of Reformers.—French Cannon Balls.—The Bingen of Poetry.—The Real Bingen.—Bishop Hatto’s Tower.— Maüse-thurme.—Southey.—Ehrenfels.—Rudesheimer Vineyards.—Wine-making.— Shallow Soil.—Johannisberg Vineyard.—The Rhine.—Mayence.—Printing.— Guttenberg’s Statue.—Cathedral

232

Chapter XX.

Pilgrimage To Aix-La-Chapelle.

Tomb of Charlemagne.—The Dead Emperor.—Cathedral.—Consecration.—Holy Shrine.—Healing Waters.—Palace.—Holy Relics.—Remarkable List.— Septennial Exhibition.—Sultan of Turkey.—Crowd.—Order and Devotion.— Sultan and Suite.—Stolidity.—Priests and Women.—A Crush.—Pageant opened.—Procession.—The Relics.—Puseyite Priest.—On the Road to Rome.— Superstition.—Pictures.—Virgin’s Garment.—Modern Style.—Holy Shirt.— Other Relics.—Pilgrims.—Revenue.—Waters.—Fountain.—Music.—Invalids.— Kurhaus.—Social Ease.—Baths.—Sulphur Water.—Antiquities.—Tower of Granus.—Statue of Charlemagne.—Bust and Skull

245

Chapter XXI.

Frankfort.

Graveyard.—Childish Plays.—Cheerful Graves.—Grave of Goethe’s Mother.— Inscription.—Lovely Sentiment.—Coffin of Goethe.—Wealthy Jew.— Humiliation.—Ancient Glory.—Ariadne.—Elegant Cars.—Smokers.—Pine Forests.—Women’s Rights.—Beer Drinking.—A Good Arrangement.— Frankfort-on-the-Oder.—Krewz.—Dinner.—Gardens.—Scenery.—Nakal.— Bromberg.—Wedges.—Attentive Servant.—Frontier.—Passports.—The Vistula.—Poland.—Warsaw

264

Chapter XXII.

Warsaw.

Historic Legend.—The Jesuits.—Partition.—Last Insurrection.—Nationality crushed out.—Attempted Insurrection.—Defeat.—Warsaw.—Armed Despotism.— Discontent.—Precarious Prosperity.—Russian Rule and Language.—Fate of a Spy.—Consequence.—Russian Soldiery.—Ill-manners.—Botanical Gardens.— Observatory.—Palace.—Sobieski’s Monument.—Grave Error.—Illumination.— Streets.—Drunkenness.—Climate.—Lutheran Church.—Relics of Romanism.— Mendicants.—Jewish Quarter.—Hospital.—War of Religions.—Statue of the Virgin.—Little Russia.—Funeral.—English Cock

273

Chapter XXIII.

From Warsaw To St. Petersburg.

Pretentious Hotel.—Splendid Bridge.—Polite Ticket-seller.—Cars.— Prairie.—Wretched Peasantry.—Jews.—Railroad Employes.—Lapy.—Mother and Son.—Bialystok.—Grodno.—Diet of Poland.—Last King of Poland.—Jewish Holiday.—Lithuania.—Plains.—Napoleon’s Hill.—Monument.—Wilna.—Ruins.— Insurrection.—Babel.—Dunaberg.—Captive.—Short Night.—Serfs.—Reform.— Board of Arbitrators.—Emancipation.—Pskof.—Lady Smoker.—St. Petersburg

284

Chapter XXIV.

St. Petersburg.

Searching Process.—Peculiar Costumes.—Rough Streets.—Russian Bath.— Dinner.—Model Guide.—Elegant Diction.—Peter the Great.—Catharine I.— Striking Contrasts.—Accommodating Weather.—Palace of the Emperor.— Column of Alexander.—Statue of Peter the Great.—Boy Czars.—Peter’s Lawyers.—Devotion.—Cathedral.—Trophies.—Isaac’s Cathedral.—Amazing Splendor.—Worship.—Offerings.—Holy of Holies.—Behind the Scenes.— Careful Husbands.—Greek and Romish Churches.—Lent.—Sabbath.—Exorcism.— Honors paid the Virgin

293

Chapter XXV.

Russian Art, Customs, And Manners.

Winter Palace.—Ways of Royalty.—Crown Jewels.—Orloff Diamond.— Hermitage.—Art Galleries.—Curious Code of Laws.—Royal Museum.—Peter’s Walking-stick.—Art Culture.—Condition of the Masses.—Laborers.— Mechanics.—Prices.—Rent.—Food.—Dress.—Peculiar Custom.—Polite Bankers.—Despot.—Justice.—Verdicts.—Story of Labanoff.—Siberia.— Abuses.—Academy of Science.—Zoological Museum.—Sunset on the Neva.— Boatman.—Light at Evening-tide

310

Chapter XXVI.

From St. Petersburg To Moscow.

American Engineers.—Sleeping Arrangements.—Newspapers.—Drama.—Courtesy.— Lubanskaia.—Dinner.—Villages.—The Volga.—Murdered Bishop.—Sleeping Car.—Ladder.—Russian Jargon.—Pathetic Appeal.—Board.—Refreshments.— Greek Ecclesiastic.—Patriarch Nicon.—New Jerusalem.—Profanity.— Tyranny.—Revolt.—Pope of the North.—Emperor’s Slight.—Nicon’s Humility.—Banishment.—Patriarchates.—Dead Level.—Flight of Freedom

322

Chapter XXVII.

The Kremlin And The Bells Of Moscow.

A Swiss Landlord.—Fleas.—Shrines.—Palaces, Cottages, and Churches.—The Moskva.—Circular City.—Kremlin Walls.—Gates.—Chief Entrance.—Picture of the Redeemer.—Respect.—Cannon.—Miracle.—Splendid Scene.—Tower of Ivan.—Bells.—Medium of Worship.—Holy City.—Pilgrims.—Bell-making.— Precious Metals.—Silver Bells.—Chapel of the Betrothed.—Music of the Bells

330

Chapter XXVIII.

The Churches Of Moscow.

Cathedral of the Assumption.—Bones of the Patriarchs.—The Iconastasis.— Sanctuary.—Archbishop’s Throne.—Coronation Ceremony.—Tombs.—Cathedral of the Archangel Michael.—Religious Freedom.—Churches.—Cathedral of St. Basil.—Archangel Cathedral.—Pilgrims.—Golgotha.—Sacristy.— Religion.—Holy Oil.—Baptism.—Making of the Holy Chrism

340

Chapter XXIX.

Palace And Institutions Of Moscow.

Royal Palace.—Empress’s Drawing-room.—Empress’s Cabinet.—Hall of St. George.—Hall of St. Andrew.—Gold Court.—Napoleon’s Descent.— Treasures.—Historical Curiosities.—Precious Orb.—Foundling Hospital.— Mortality of Foundlings.—Orphan Asylum.—Sheep’s Clothing.—Harvest Season.—Jews.—Peasants.—Riding School.—Wax-show.—Ethnological Society.—Travel.—Sydney Smith’s Stick

350

Chapter XXX.

From Moscow To St. Petersburg.

Commercial Travellers.—Sparrow Hills.—Church of the Saviour.—Simonoff Monastery.—Novo-Devichi Convent.—The Moskva.—A Holiday.—Napoleon’s March.—Borodino.—Evacuation of Moscow.—French Enthusiasm.—Triumphal Entry.—Surprise.—Incendiarism.—Return of the French.—Horrors of the March.—Russian Barbarism.—Public Kissing.—From Moscow to St. Petersburg.—Fussy Ladies.—Klin.—Dinner.—Tver.—Beggars.—Night without Darkness.—The Fussy Ladies again.—Sunrise.—Marriage Customs

359

Chapter XXXI.

Finland.

Americans.—Cronstadt.—Fortifications.—Vessels.—Smoking.—Wyborg.— Saw-mills.—Channel.—Ruined Tower.—Submission of Finland.—Religion.— Government.—Harvests.—Famines.—Army.—Wages.—Fens.—Lakes and Islands.— Drosky.—Huge Stones.—Excursion.—Eden in the North.—Serpent in the Garden.—Long Bills.—Attentions paid Strangers.—A Finnish Lady.— Fishermen.—A Killing Man.—Gulf of Finland.—Fredericksham.—Sclava.—Hard Case.—Social Customs

371

Chapter XXXII.

Finland (_continued_).

Helsingfors.—Sweaborg.—Fortified Islands.—Society House.—Ducal Palace.— Finnish Gentlemen.—Senate House.—University.—Observatory.—Library.— Literature.—Kalewala.—Schiller and Shakespeare.—Language.—Congress.— Coats of Arms.—Botanical Garden.—House of Refreshment.—Health Establishment.—Mineral Fountain.—Rocky Islands.—Fishing.—Peasantry.— Abo.—Hotel.—Good Manners.—Castle.—Cathedral.—Tombs.—Conflagration.— Carriole.—Kibitka.—Bondkara.—Finns

383

Chapter XXXIII.

Sweden.

Harbor of Abo.—Swedish Customs.—Eating and Drinking.—Climate.—The Baltic.—Stockholm.—Porters.—Hotel Rydburg.—Pleasant Quarters.— Scandinavia.—Odin.—Sagas.—Christianity.—Lutheran Religion.—King.— Congress.—Hospital.—Physicians.—Clergymen.—Education.—Religious Toleration.—The Press.—Cost of Living.—Vice.—The Riddarholm’s Kyrkan.— Tomb of Gustavus Adolphus.—Reformation.—Royal Palace.—Picture Gallery.—Library.—Codex Aureus.—King of Sweden.—Mimic War.—Standing Army.—Order.—Thieves

394

Chapter XXXIV.

Sweden (_continued_).

Drottningholm.—Lake Malar.—Sigtuna.—Odin.—Superstition.—Pirates.—Rural Life.—Professor Olivecrona.—Islands.—Chateau.—Commercial Life.— Manuscripts.—University of Upsala.—Codex Argenteus.—Icelandic Literature.—Standard of Education.—Students.—Costume.—Cathedral.— Statue of Thor.—Old Upsala.—Mora Stone.—Mass Meetings.—Graves of Pagan Deities.—Temple of Odin.—Ancient Tower.—Battle-field of Faith.—Deer Park Restaurant.—Social Customs.—Swedish Homes.—Content.—Moral Progress

409

Chapter XXXV.

Sweden (_continued_).

Steam Canal.—The Oscar.—View of Stockholm.—Sodertelje.—St. Olaf.—The Gota Canal.—Castles and Legends.—Soderkoping.—Tavern Breakfast.— Sabbath in Sweden.—Church.—Costumes.—Service.—Snuffing and Nasal Singing.—Watering-place.—Physician.—College of Health.—Baths.—Mineral Waters.—Emigration.—Lodging and Board

423

Chapter XXXVI.

Sweden (_continued_).

On the Gota Canal again.—Working-girl.—Lake Asplagen.—Swedish Professor.—Lake Roxen.—Berg.—The Vetra-Kloster.—Graveyard.—Tombs of the Douglases.—School-house.—Dinner on the Canal.—Crops.—Lock-keeper.— Lake Boren.—Motala.—Iron-works.—Lake Wetter.—Wadstena.—Pea-crop.— Peasantry.—Labor.—Cold.—Sunset.—Forsvik.—Russian Gentleman.—Lake Wenner.—Trout.—Falls of Trollhatten.—River.—Unfortunate Sailor.— Collection.—Hongfel Castle.—Gottenburg.—Cheap Lodgings.—Museum.—Daily News.—Training House for Servants.—Philanthropy

433

Chapter XXXVII.

Norway.

Embarkation.—Breakfast.—Skager-rack and Cattegat.—Freidericksvern.— Christiania.—Hotel du Nord.—Flowers and Fountains.—Stove.—Norwegian Breakfast.—Museum.—Superstition.—Duel of the Girdle.—Bridal Ornaments.—Heathen Relics.—Learning and Letters.—Lake Mjosen.—English Commercial Traveller.—Boat Library.—Sportsmen.—Church.—Fat Pastor.— Remnants of Popery.—Costumes.—The Lord’s Supper.—Service.—Devotion and Reverence.—Oneness of the Church.—Lillehammer.—Cheap Living.—Cripple.— Christiania.—Carriole.—Post Horses and Boys.—Agershaus.—Robin Hood of Norway.—Benevolent Institutions.—Grave of Bradshaw

447

Chapter XXXVIII.

Denmark.

Skager-rack and Cattegat.—Magnificent Sunset.—Elsinore.—Toll.—House of Tycho Brahe.—Kronborg.—Treaty of Vienna.—Danish Giant.— Fortifications.—Hamlet’s Grave.—True History.—Royal Castle.—Queen of Christian II.—Touching Prayer.—Royal Forest.—Castle of Peace.— Denmark.—Her History.—Valdemar II.—Schleswig-Holstein.—Christianity.— General Intelligence.—Education.—Copenhagen.—Thorvaldsen’s Museum.— Statues.—Vanity.—Hall of Christ.—Gems and Bronzes.—Vor Frue Kirke.— Religion and Art.—Church Service.—Baptism.—Love of Amusement.— Theatres.—Public Gardens.—Museum.—Ruins.—Monuments.—South American Gentleman.—Zealand.—Fleas.—Kiel.—Elmshorn.—Home Again

462

Spain.

Chapter I.

Granada.

IN the grounds of the Alhambra, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings of Granada, what time those conquerors of Spain here held their right regal court, I have come to sit down and to rest.

My lodgings are just under the walls of the old castle, in sight of its crumbling towers, in hearing of its many falling waters, and under the shadow of its English elms, which the Duke of Wellington gave to Spain. At any moment a few steps take me into the courts and halls and chambers of the Alhambra. In years past, while this pearl of Arab art and Oriental splendor was silently suffered to fall into ruin, with the lapse of centuries, it has been the habit of some travelled authors more addicted to romance than others, to get the easy privilege of sharing lodgings with the bats in some deserted chamber, and they doubtless fancied themselves inspired with the genius of the place, as they dreamed and wrote where fair sultanas with their charms eclipsed the splendors of the fairy place itself.

As it is no part of my purpose to indulge in romance while writing these sketches of the Alhambra and of Spain, and as the walls of a comfortable inn are much more to the taste of a weary traveller than the stone floors and open windows of a tumbling old castle, it is my preference to take up my abode for the present with the good people in the Alhambra Hotel, and not with the keepers of the palace itself. Besides, there is no choice left. The government has undertaken the work of restoring the Alhambra to its pristine beauty, and this process is now going onward under the direction of Sr. Contreras. He has already displayed so much skill in imitating the arabesque decorations of the walls, that only a practised eye perceives the difference when the ancient and the modern art appear in the same chamber.

Architects as well as amateur travellers from all parts of the civilized world, for centuries past, have made artistic and pleasure journeys hither to study and admire the style that has nothing like it except in Spain, and here only where the Moors held sway. And perhaps no work of art in the whole world has been more frequently and fully described than the Alhambra of Granada. History, poetry, and science have tried their several hands upon it. Romance has been so busy with it that it is not an easy task to disentangle the web of fiction, and get the only part of the tale worth knowing. So dear is truth, the simple, naked truth of history, to every true soul, that he is a great doer of evil who seizes upon history, and while professing to write it, weaves into his story the fancies of his own prolific genius, and that so deftly and so charmingly that the whole is accepted as veritable history, and the romance as the most credible and interesting of the whole. Early English history has thus been illustrated and inextricably confused. The spell of the magician’s wand has thus made the conquest of Mexico a poem rather than a reliable narrative. And Spain, more than any other land, is now hopelessly given up to legends and doubtful chronicles, modern and antique, so that one who reads must have either the credulity of a devotee, or the indifference of folly, to read with satisfaction the ancient history of the Peninsula.

But the Alhambra is here! Granada is where it was a thousand years ago! The same deep blue sky, the bluest sky that covers any land, hangs over its magnificent Vega or plain, through which the Darro and the Genil, united, flow! The hills, each one with a story that can be scarcely heard without a tear, stand where and as they did when the Moors were masters of this region, which they thought the terrestrial paradise of man, and immediately under the celestial mansions where the Prophet and the Houris await the coming of all true believers. The Sierra Nevada, covered with perpetual snow, seems close at hand, as it lies on the eastern horizon, and in this cloudless sky and brilliant atmosphere the long range shines like silver mountains in the noontide, as it did when fleet horsemen brought its ice in baskets to cool the drinks of Wali Zawi Ibu Zeyn, its first Moorish king. Those snowy summits reminded the Arabs when they came here of Mount Hermon, and this plain seemed to them to surpass in fertility and beauty the Vega around Damascus.

And to this day the palm-tree, the pomegranate, and the fig, the orange and lemon, the olive and vine, flourish under the genial sun. In these declining years of the nineteenth century, with a railroad running into the city across the heart of this paradise, and telegraphs linking it with Madrid and London and Washington, the peasants still scratch the ground with the root of a tree for a plough, and carry their produce to market on the back of a donkey.

The creations of the Moors in Spain form the most remarkable chapter in human art. To me, Spain has been a new discovery; a sudden revelation of a world within a world; the monuments of an extinct or departed race standing alone in a desert. The generation that now possesses the soil has nothing of the genius or taste or spirit of the barbaric tribes that were once their masters. And the Alhambra at Granada, the Mosque at Cordova, and the Alcazar at Seville, look like the wrecks of a stranded empire, whose people live only in their glorious ruins.

In the language of a brilliant historian, “Spain stands to-day a hideous skeleton among living nations.”

They have a legend here that Adam made a visit to the earth a few years ago, to see how his farm was getting on. He alighted in Germany, and found schools and colleges and books, and the people intent on learning. He soon left it for France, where the people dressed in fantastic styles, and were mad upon works of art and improvements unknown to our great ancestor. Disgusted with all he saw, he came down to Spain, and, with delight, exclaimed, “This is just as I left it.”

Adam was nearly right. Of all the countries in Europe this is more _as it was_ than any other. The greatest calamity that ever happened to Spain was its expulsion of the Moors; and it will be a century, perhaps many centuries, before the arts and sciences will flourish on this soil as they did before that year, so memorable for the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and the overthrow of the kingdom of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella. Both those events, forming the most momentous epoch in the history of Spain, occurred in the year 1492, from which period we may date the decline of an empire enriched by the untold wealth of a new world added to its possessions, and strengthened by the destruction of the last stronghold of its former conquerors and masters. Foreign capital and enterprise have forced railroads across her mountains and plains, but the capital and enterprise of the world cannot make them profitable, when the people have no industry and no ambition. The mines of Spain are so rich that she has no need of possessions in the gold fields of the western hemisphere; and they have been known and worked ever since the days of the Phœnicians, when Andalusia was the Tarshish of Holy Scripture. Yet Spain is more distinguished to-day, as being behind the world, than for aught it has done or is doing for itself or others. And it often seems to a traveller here in Spain that he is in the Orient, so many manners and customs, so many works, and, much more, such a want of things he is wont to meet with in the more civilized nations, remind him that he is among a people who have derived much of what they have and are from lands at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea.

It has a mixed race of inhabitants. It would not be strange if it had a mixed government also. Successive tides of people have swept over it, and the vestiges of all are left on the surface of the nation. Very little, indeed, is known of the days when the Iberians from Caucasus, and the Celts from Gaul, were the rude settlers of Spain; but the traces are more plain of the Phœnicians, who came here 1500 years before the birth of Jesus, and founded Cadiz and Malaga, and Cordova and Seville. In the year 218 before Christ the Romans came, and, of course, conquered all Spain, and reigned here just six centuries. Then came the Goths, sweeping the Romans out of Spain as they crushed Rome in Italy. And the Goths ruled Spain precisely 300 years. Then came the Moors, and, in two pitched battles, smote the Gothic Christian power to the earth; and, like a hurricane from the African coast, rushed up from the south, and never stayed its destructive course till the crescent had supplanted the cross on every tower in Spain. The Moors were lords of Spain just seven centuries. Gradually the crescent waned, as the Catholic Christian kings recovered strength, until St. Ferdinand captured Cordova, in 1235, and Ferdinand and Isabella completed the work at Granada, on the third day of the year 1492, and the last of the Moorish kings fled from the Alhambra.

Chapter II.

Out Of France Into Spain—The Basque Provinces.

AWAY down in the south-west corner of France, on the Bay of Biscay, was a hamlet on a rock-bound coast, which has of late years suddenly sprung into the notice of the world. The sunshine of imperial favor ripened the modest bud of a humble village into a flower of remarkable beauty. What was a short time since quite unknown, is now the fashionable watering-place of France. Selected by the late Emperor as his autumnal resort, he built a handsome chateau, and named it _Eugénie_, and thus made the fortune of Biarritz.

Here we spent a few days of rest after a long and wearying journey. The coast is dangerous. The bay is rough to a degree that has become a proverb. An attempt was making under government direction to construct a breakwater, so as to enclose a “harbor of refuge,” and one is greatly needed. A process, new to me, but perhaps common, was going on: that of building rocks, or blocks, to make the projecting pier. Thousands of square feet of rock are here in the hills, but, for some reason, it is preferred to form a concrete mass with stone and cement. These are made in cubes of six or eight feet, with two grooves underneath them, and when they have stood long enough to be proof against water, levers are thrust under them, a derrick hoists them upon a platform which is moved on a railway to the pier, where they are launched off into the deep. The fury of the waves at this point, especially in rough weather, is frightful. The new breakwater was recently swept away. Two or three workmen were caught by the waves rushing higher than was expected, and the poor fellows were carried off into a deeper ocean. This terrified the others, and they declined to expose themselves to such dangers. The priests came to the rescue. They set up an image of the Virgin on an overhanging rock. She looks down benignly on the work and the workmen. Not one has been swept away since she stood there!! Confidence is restored. The breakwater is gradually extending. It will cost an immense sum, and if the Virgin is so successful in saving the lives of the landsmen in building it, one would think she might just as easily save the sailors, and so render the harbor unnecessary.

On this stormy coast, where the surf breaks over huge rocks, and sometimes rushes curiously through them by passages worn in ages of incessant roll, there are several coves where the beach slopes gradually to the sea, and the smooth sand floor furnishes delightful bathing grounds. Here, in the season, the court used to disport itself in other robes than those of royalty, and among the crowds of fashionable people, who in fantastic _deshabille_ indulge in the ocean bath, were daily seen the Emperor and Empress and the remarkable boy who astonished the mayor by being the son of an Emperor when only ten years of age!

A courier, or travelling servant, is usually more of a nuisance than assistance, but I had to have one. He had the Spanish name of Antanazio, was of course familiar with the language, and he spoke French also, but not a word of English. He was a half devout Catholic, and professed to be very discriminating in his faith, rejecting many of the notions of his countrymen, and swallowing others without a strain. He was a big fellow, so big that he could easily have taken me under one arm and my companion on the other, and marched into or out of Spain at any moment. He was the terror of the cabmen and porters and waiters, bullying, swearing, and pushing his way through the thickest of the fight, in those struggles that attend every arrival of a passenger in any part of the world. He was just about as honest as the race to which he belongs. Every traveller thinks his own courier a pattern of honesty. I have had them in a dozen different countries, and never yet was able to put the word _honest_ into the certificate which they craved at the end of the journey. Some are better than others. Any one of them is worse than none, if you have a slight knowledge of the country. Antanazio was in league with every hotel man to get as much out of us as he could, and he made up for his frauds on a large scale by an excess of zeal to save a few coppers for us when a poor porter or sacristan was to be paid for service. The gnat and the camel were familiar to Antanazio. Yet he was one of the best couriers to be found, and he shall have the benefit of this notice.

Just before we leave France to go into Spain we pass a village, here mentioned only to cite an eloquent epigram inscribed around the dial of the clock on its tower: “_Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat_.” Even so; each flying moment wounds: the last slays. And after quitting the Hendaye station, we dash across the river Bidassoa, which divides the two kingdoms. It would take us the rest of the day merely to read the history that invests this crossing with interest for all time. A little dry spot is in the bed of the river. There kings and queens and generals have met to settle affairs of state as on neutral ground, and the petty patch has come to be called the Island of Conference. Here, in the middle of the dividing river, Louis XIV. of France had his first meeting with Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and they were married in the cathedral of St. Jean de Luz on the French side of the river. On the same spot the kings of France and Spain met in 1463 to negotiate; and here too, in 1645, Isabella the daughter of Henry IV. was _exchanged_ for Anna of Austria, the one to be the wife of the king of Spain, and the other of France. In 1526, Francis I., who was a prisoner of Charles V., was here given up, and his two sons accepted as hostages in his stead. We go thousands of miles to visit a spot that has thus been made sacred and famous, yet one can hardly tell why he looks with interest upon ground so sanctified. The grass and the weeds grow just as freely, and the birds are as careless in their songs, and the water flows on as it always flows; but still no thoughtful traveller can pass such landmarks in the march of great events, without pausing to observe the effect which those events have had on the history of the world. And this is one of the greatest objects before us as we enter and traverse Spain. It is a land of history: of romance too; and perhaps both are equally interesting. For every line we cross, and every city and province we visit, is rich in association, even if the land is now but a great sepulchre of great peoples.

And we were in Spain. On the northern frontier, and in instant contact with the people of France, is a race that is Spanish only in name, and hardly that; a race that has, through all the mutations of government in this unstable country, maintained a sort of independence, with rights and privileges, manners and customs so peculiar to themselves, that they may be said to be _in_ Spain, but not _of_ Spain.

On the anniversary of the death of one of their number, the friends gather at the grave, and offer to the departed gifts of bread and fruit, as if they required supplies of food for the endless journey in another world. On the holidays, which are many in a year, they are wild in the dance, with the tambourine and bagpipe and castanet, being far more demonstrative in the height of their excitement than the more southern inhabitants of Spain. They are a proud race, and more proud of their ancestry than any thing else, the poorest peasant among the hills displaying on the door of his hut a coat of arms, and claiming descent from some ancient and illustrious house. As a race they have no trouble in reckoning their pedigree back to Tubal and Noah, and unless your tree of genealogy has branches springing out of a trunk that bears the name of Adam, these people are far ahead of you in the line of their ancestry.

They occupy the Basque Provinces, three divisions, small in extent, lying among the Pyrenees and on the Bay of Biscay. They are probably lineal descendants of the first settlers of Spain, and may be correct in their boast that they are not tainted with Roman or Moorish or Gothic-German blood. They still speak a language so strange and so formidable to a foreigner that it is said no one has been able to master it. There is a tradition among them that the devil himself spent five years in studying it, and was able to learn three words only. But after much inquiry I could not trace this tradition to any reliable source. In fact, it is said that one or two bold and persevering scholars have actually made some inroads into the language, but the discoveries made were a very poor reward for the time and labor spent.

Into this new yet ancient country we enter at once, for it is the northern gateway of Spain. At the outset of our journey we must “change cars,” for the Spanish government, in granting license for a railroad to enter its domains, refused to allow it to be made of the same width with that of France, as it would in that case afford to the French facilities for invasion in case of war! The idea is very characteristic of Spain. And the same stupidity that dictates such an impediment to travel forgets that every train of passengers coming in from the north is an invasion that is just as fatal to the regime of Spain as would be another incursion of Goths or Gauls. Ideas, rather than arms, work revolutions now-a-days.

The mountains have stretched themselves across this frontier to the verge of the ocean, and on our right as we go south is a narrow pass between two precipitous hills, and thus a safe and easily defended path for ships is made. Within is a snug harbor, where the largest fleet may lie unseen, and unreached by the storms at sea. Out of this little port once sailed a man whose name is dear to the American heart; for in the days that tried the souls of our fathers La Fayette came here into Spain and took passage to the Western world, to give his sword and his fortune and his life to the cause of liberty. A little farther on, a high castle-crowned hill defends the city of St. Sebastian. It is the first place of any importance after entering Spain. Being so near to France, and so easy of access by rail, it is common for Englishmen and others to take a trip to St. Sebastian, from Biarritz, which is only two or three hours distant, and _then_ they can say they have been to Spain. There is nothing of interest here to attract the traveller. The Duke of Wellington, after losing 5,000 men in storming it, drove out the French, and when his army got possession of the town, they sacked it, set it on fire, and enacted such scenes of wild debauchery as are not remembered without a blush of shame after the lapse of more than half a century. To please visitors from the north, and to make their town a fashionable resort in the season, the people of St. Sebastian have a bull-ring, and exhibit on a small scale the national entertainment of a weekly bull-fight. For it must not be supposed that Spanish blood only is delighted with this savage sport. The French love to see blood; and the English, whose highest national sport is the prize-fight; and Americans, who have been known to allow a prize-fighter to be sent to their national Congress,—all take great pleasure in seeing horses, bulls, and men, in one grand _mêlée_, wounded, bleeding, dying; and the fairest of some of the most delicate little women of these Christian countries clap their hands when the bull gets the advantage and tosses his bleeding victim into the air.

We are now in the midst of the mountains. The road gradually rises as we advance, and frequently makes its way through the heart of the hills. The valleys lie sweetly far below. If the road followed the line of the valleys it might be exposed to frequent injury by floods. And as this range must be crossed, it is better to make the ascent as easy as possible. We might be in Switzerland, so like it are these farms on the hill-sides and in the valleys; the sounds that break on the ear are the same: the houses scattered in cosy nooks, or clustered in little villages which the church crowns with a blessing as of heaven. The oxen have their head and necks covered with a sheepskin or a woollen blanket to protect them from the rain. They drag a cart of which the wheels are a solid block of wood secured with a tire. There has been a fair to-day in some one of the villages, and men and women are going home, leading cattle they have purchased. The men are well formed, athletic, straight, and good-looking. The women are a superior race, and even when leading a calf the peasant woman steps proudly along as if she were entering her drawing-room. Their hair is their glory, worn pendant on their backs. Of their moral and mental culture little is known, as they have slight intercourse with the outer world. From the beginning they have had a government of their own, sometimes being cut up into republics, and managing the most of matters in their own way. Even when they have claimed their own congress, and tariff, and army, the Spanish government has thought it the part of discretion to humor them. When emerging from these provinces into Castile, our luggage was searched to find any tobacco we might be smuggling: for this is one of the privileges of the Basque Provinces, that they may import tobacco free of duty, but it is under a tariff the moment we pass beyond. In this region the Indian corn of our own country is the principal production. Peaches, apples, and cherries are abundant. Iron mines are worked, and furnaces are frequently seen in full blast. Cloth and paper mills are in operation. The inhabitants have an energy and enterprise far superior to that of the people farther south. Many of them become seamen. Some have made discoveries in distant seas. One of the most peculiar of their ideas, and one that may account for the lofty bearing of their women, is, that the right of primogeniture exists among them, but it applies to the first-born child, whether son or daughter! This often places the woman at the head of the house, so that she can say, as few women elsewhere can say, “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own.”

Property is very widely diffused among the people; farms seldom comprise more than ten acres, so that there can be no great practical distinctions among them on account of wealth. They divide their farms with hedges instead of fences or walls, while in the more southern parts of Spain they put up no fences of any sort, but merely mark the bounds of land with a stone, which cannot be moved without incurring a curse.

In a charming valley, among hills clothed with chestnut-trees, and the meadows with orchards of apples and pears, lies the village of Tolosa, and farther on we rested at Vitoria, a famous city, the capital of the Province of Alava, and celebrated as the scene of a great battle between the English and the French in 1813. The Duke of Wellington led the British and beat the French under Joseph Buonaparte, who fled in such disorder and haste that all the pictures he had stolen in Spain, and five millions of dollars, fell into the hands of the Duke.

We are now leaving the Basque Provinces: Miranda is the first town in Castile at which we stop. An immense railroad station is in progress of erection, showing the expectation at least of a great amount of business. We hope the hope may be realized. Crossing the river Zadorra, and now the Ebro, and along the Oroncillo, we are again in the midst of the wildest and grandest mountain scenery, as we take our iron way through the frightful gorges of Pancorbo. And even here the legends of Spain begin to invest the crags and ruined castles with the interest of romance. For on these heights are the remnants of the castle where Roderick, the last king of the Goths, brought the beautiful Florinda, whom he saw as David saw Bathsheba, and seeing loved, not wisely but too well, and loving, lost his crown, his honor, his kingdom, and his life.

Chapter III.

Burgos—The Escorial.

NOTHING purely Spanish comes in sight till we get to Burgos. This old city is half-way from the frontier to Madrid, and is just so slow, sleepy, and sluggish a town as one should see to get a correct impression of Spain at the start. About a thousand years ago, Diego Porcelos, a knight of Castile, had a beautiful daughter, Sulla Bella, who was loved and won by a German, and they founded this city, calling it from a German _Burg_, a fortified place, Burgos. For many long years it was independent, governed by a council. Afterwards, Gonzales was made the governor, as Count of Castile, who and his heirs reigned until, under Ferdinand I., in 1067, by a happy marriage, the crowns of Leon and Castile were fused into one.

[Illustration: BRIDGE, GATEWAY, AND CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS.]

The legendary hero of Spain, whose exploits are only less than those of Hercules, was born in Burgos, and what is more and better, his bones are here in the Town Hall; and if any doubt is entertained of the fact that he actually lived and died and was a wonderful man, between the dates of his birth and death, such doubts ought to be dispelled by a sight which I had of an old brass-bound, mouldering chest, sacredly preserved in one of the inner and holy chambers of the cathedral, and called the coffer of the Cid. Once on a time the Cid had occasion to borrow a large sum of money of two Jewish bankers in Burgos, and he left with them as security this trunk, with, _as he said_, all his jewels and gold in it. He did not pay the money when it was due, and the chest being opened by the lenders was found full only of sand! It was thought in those days a merit to cheat a Jew, and the Romanists show their estimate of the trick to this day by keeping the swindling coffer among their precious relics. But it is hardly probable that a Jew ever lived who would lend money without first _seeing_ the security, and the story therefore lacks probability. However this may be, we are now in the city of the Cid, and though a Christian knight, he had read the words of the Prophet of the Moor,—“There are three sorts of lies which will not be taken into account at the last judgment: 1st, One told to reconcile two persons at variance. 2d, That which a husband tells when he promises any thing to his wife; and 3d, A chieftain’s word in time of war.” Such is the morality of Mahomet, and there is not a little of the same Jesuitism under other names.

[Illustration: THE CID.]

The city has 25,000 inhabitants, and one of the most splendid cathedrals of Europe; but not a hotel that is decent. We went to the best, and its entrance was strong with the smell of the stables. The first flight of steps inside was littered with dust and straw, and it looked as if we were to be led to a manger, which word is, indeed, the same with the French _salle à manger_, a dining-room. Yet this proved to be as fair a hotel as Spain at present offers to its friends from abroad. They are all inferior to second-rate hotels in France or Switzerland, and many that profess to be first-class are execrable. The charges are higher than in better houses in countries where living is dearer, so that the business of entertaining strangers in Spain is an organized imposition. The roads are now free from robbers who formerly infested them and made travelling dangerous. The robbers have evidently left the highway and gone to keeping the hotels. They still rob travellers, with less risk and trouble than in the olden time.

An Englishman by the name of Maurice, being high in the favor of Ferdinand, the saint and hero, laid the foundation, A. D. 1221, of the Burgos cathedral, which fairly challenges comparison with any or all of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in the world. Having been built in successive periods, and these at long distances from each other, there is a want of harmony in the parts, but this is observed only by the professional eye, while to others, and especially on one who enters this first of the great edifices of Spain, its interior bursts with a blaze of grandeur covered with beauty, that fairly dazzles while it awes and delights him. And after having visited and leisurely studied half a dozen others, including those of Toledo and Seville, I regard the cathedral of Burgos as exhibiting a degree of perfection in detail, an elaborate execution to adorn and embellish a sanctuary, not equalled by any of its rivals in Spain.

And it is to Spain that we must come to see what the art and consecrated wealth of princes and priests can do to build temples in honor of God. Italy has nothing like them. St. Peter’s is the largest Christian church in the world, and perhaps more labor and money have been expended upon it. But as a Christian church it is a failure, without and within. Not so with any of these magnificent monuments of human power and devotion. The towers of this, at Burgos, with their graceful, open-worked pinnacles, spring up as if seeking the sky. The gates are grand, and surrounded and crowned with _bas reliefs_. Around the towers are seventy statues, of prophets and apostles, and over the transept are twenty-four life-size statues of female saints, each covered with a canopy, as guardian angels on this house of prayer. Moses and Aaron, in stone, stand by one of the doors, with Peter and Paul, and in the vestibule is the Saviour, and around him the four evangelists are writing the holy gospels, while at least fifty statues, apostles, angels with candlesticks, seraphs, and cherubs, add to the ornament of this one gate.

It is quite impracticable to convey by words, and it is a fact that drawings or photographs of interiors fail to convey an idea of the view which one meets on entering a vast cathedral. The impression is on a devout mind, whether of the same faith with that professed by the ministers at these altars or not, the impression is one of solemnity and sublimity. When the enlightened stranger comes near to study the wretched additions which superstition has made to the simplicity of Christian worship as established by its founder, his taste and principles may be shocked and revolted by what he sees and hears in gorgeous and glorious cathedrals. But these are abuses that have crept in: _fungi_ on the trunks of grand old forest trees, under whose branches it is a delight to sit and think of him who dwells in a nobler temple not made with hands. Three hundred feet long, and two hundred feet and more wide within, and chapels yet beyond, each one large enough for a church, and two hundred feet to the roof, which is supported by vast pillars of stone, and each one of them wrought elaborately with garlands, and fruits, and images of angels, and historic scenes and incidents in Scripture,—such is the first grand view that lies before us, as we enter the gates of this cathedral in Burgos. It is in the form of the Latin cross, and at the intersection, the _crucero_, as it is called in Spanish, the effect of the vaulted dome, and of the whole minute and elegant workmanship, is so exquisite that the Emperor Charles V. is reported to have said it should be placed under glass, and Philip II. pronounced it the work rather of angels than men. I could discern nothing worthy of such exaggerated eulogy, while admiring the harmonious proportions and the graceful combinations that enhance the effect of elaborate sculpture and ingenious decorations.

Four massive columns, embellished with allegorical sculptures, form the transept, and above them the main arches spring. Angels bear aloft a banner, inscribed, “I will praise thee in thy temple, and I will glorify thy name, thou whose works are miracles.”

Just here, for we were coming toward the high altar, Antanazio dropped upon his knees, on the marble floor. A little bell had been rung, and all the Catholics in the cathedral bent to the ground as the host was elevated for their adoration in the celebration of the mass. We stood before the high altar, resplendent above and about it with wrought silver and gold and rich carving and sculpture, in which the life and death of the blessed Saviour are inscribed in mute yet expressive symbols. In the choir are more than a hundred stalls or seats of carved walnut, each one of them an elaborate work of art, rich with figures of men and beasts, the virgin and saints in martyrdom and in glory; and one of these saints is astride of the devil, in memory of the fact that the devil did carry this saint from Spain to Rome in one night. That’s better time than any of the Spanish railroads can make.

We were led by a kind sacristan through the various chapels, all rich in tombs of costly workmanship, and some containing relics which, to the believer in their virtue, are of priceless value; one of these precious treasures being a statue of Christ on the cross, which we were expected to behold with deep reverence. It is asserted and believed to have been carved by Nicodemus just after he had buried the Saviour. It is, therefore, an authentic likeness; and if any doubt existed of its being a genuine work, it is removed by the facts that the hair, the beard, the eyelashes even, and the thorns, are all natural, _real_; that it sweats every Friday; that it sometimes actually bleeds; and that it has performed many miracles. It would have been more impressive on my unbelieving mind if it had not been girt about with a red petticoat!

[Illustration: THE ESCORIAL.]

The castle has a history in which the names of all the great warriors of the last thousand years have a part; it has been the prison of some kings, and the bridal-chamber of queens, and the birth-place of more. In modern times Napoleon conquered it. And what is more remarkable, Wellington tried to drive out the French, and failed. It is now a heap of ruins; for when the French abandoned it they blew it up, but so bunglingly that some three hundred of them went up with it. The explosion destroyed the painted windows of the cathedral, an irreparable loss.

There is nothing in Burgos to see but the cathedral; and that is worth going to Spain to see, though you may have to put up _at_ and _with_ a Burgos tavern.

Philip II. came to the throne of Spain in 1556, less than twenty years before the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day in France, and in the same century with the Reformation led on by Luther. His history and his character are familiar to the world. Cold, cruel, bigoted, intolerant, morose, gloomy, superstitious, the grandson of a woman who was known by the name of Crazy Jane, and who earned the title, the son of the great Emperor of Germany, Charles V., who was also Charles I. of Spain, this Philip II., thus descended and thus endowed, was less a king than a monk, and in the cloister or the cell was more at home than on the throne. He was the husband of Bloody Mary of England, and, like her, verily thought to please God by persecuting the saints and mortifying himself. Perhaps his queer grandmother had put the idea of a palace and a monastery and a tomb into his head. Perhaps his father, in the gloomy hours when he meditated retirement and abdication of his sovereignty, inspired the son with this strange purpose. Or, more likely, the conception with him was original, and as no monarch, before him or since, had such a heart under the guide of such a head, it is only just to give him all the credit of devising and achieving one of the most stupendous follies and gigantic monuments that was ever executed by the hands of men.

The Spaniards reckon the ESCORIAL as the eighth wonder of the world!

About twenty-five miles north of Madrid, in the midst of the dreariest wilderness of barren, rocky, all but uninhabitable hills, a region where no beauty of scenery cheers the eye, no silver river winds along through fertile vales, no verdant slopes are covered with grazing herds, and no forests with their cool shades invite the tired traveller or the weary citizen to seek repose,—here, in the last of all places for such an edifice, is placed the ESCORIAL, the largest and grandest edifice in Spain, and the most remarkable building now standing on the earth. What Egypt had when Karnak and Thebes were in their prime, what Babylon and Nineveh knew in the days of their now buried glory, we have but faint knowledge. This house covers a square of five hundred thousand feet! It is about 750 feet long, and 600 feet wide. It is a royal palace. It is a monastery. It is the sepulchre of the royal family of Spain. It is a church; and in that church, the chapel of this strange house, there is more wealth lavished on the pulpits and altars than on any other that I have seen, in this or any other country. Yet all this is in a wilderness, far away from cities and the abodes of men who might be supposed to admire and enjoy such grandeur,—a temple in a desert, a palace and a sepulchre.

Passing on by the rail from Burgos, we might stop at Valladolid, once the most renowned of all the cities of Spain, now so utterly decayed as to be of interest only to antiquarians. Here Ferdinand and Isabella were married in 1469. Here Columbus, the worn and weary, died in his own house in 1506. Here he slept in death six years, and then his bones were removed to Seville, and again to Cuba, that they might rest in the New World he found. Philip II., whose ESCORIAL we are going to see, was born here in Valladolid, and after he grew to manhood had the pleasure of seeing at one time fourteen Protestants, and thirteen at another, burnt alive, in the Grand Square of the city: a most edifying spectacle, which strengthened his faith so much that he afterwards dedicated his mighty structure to the good St. Lawrence, who was broiled to death on a gridiron, enduring his torments with so much fortitude that he said to his executioners, “I am done on this side, perhaps you had better turn me over,”—whence comes the expression, “done to a turn.”

Philip II. made Madrid the capital of his kingdom, holding his court there or at the Escorial, at his pleasure, for they were only a few hours apart.

It is a long but pleasant walk from the station to the palace, and it is better to stroll along the shaded avenues, resting at times on the solid stone seats, looking upward at the solitary pile ahead, and musing on the wonderful dead past; the pomp and pageantry, the vast processions of priests and kings and countless armies of Spain, of France, of England, that have marched up this same street, in triumph, in penitential grief, or in funeral array. Away from the world, the world has often come hither, under the many garbs the world wears, according as it is in glory or in shame. Entering the grand quadrangle by the chief gate, the colossal edifice presents its central front and the two lateral projections in one view; the main façade is adorned with statues of the principal personages in Old Testament history. Crossing the court, paved with great granite blocks, we enter, and the massive walls, the cold damp halls, gloomy in their naked, solid grandeur, make us feel that we are entering a fortress, and not a palace. It would be impossible to find your way without a guide. There are sixteen courts within, and out of each of them long passages lead to eighty staircases, and up these we may go, if we have time, to twelve thousand doors, and look out of two thousand six hundred windows, and worship at forty altars!! You wish to be excused from such climbing and kneeling. Come, then, with me at once into the church. It is more than 300 feet long, and 230 feet wide, and 320 feet high: of granite all; its columns are majestic in their proportions, severe in Doric simplicity, supporting twenty-four arches, so beautifully sprung that, wherever you stand, the eye takes in the whole at a glance. The pulpits surpass, in the splendor of their finish, any thing in Italy. The richest, variegated, and most precious marbles, used as freely as though they were common wood, are adorned with gold and silver, strangely in contrast with the severity of the church itself. The altar is reached by a flight of several steps, and on the right, as we stand in front of it, a window opens into a little chamber, which we sought with more interest than any other apartment of this remarkable structure. We went out of the church and into the room. It was scarcely ten feet by six in dimensions; but it was the favorite closet, the study and the bedchamber of the monarch who built the whole. This was all he wanted for himself. It was in sight and hearing of the service at the high altar. At midnight and before daybreak he could rise from his couch, and join in the service of the church. I sat down in the plain old chair, by the table, the same that he used, and put up my feet on the camp-stool that often held his diseased and agonized limbs, and looked down from the little window on the priests and people in the church below. And here in this room death came and called for Philip II. For long months he had suffered anguish not less than that he had inflicted on better men than he. Let us leave it for others to say if like Herod he was smitten for his sins, and destroyed with the same disease. But when he saw that his end was near, at his order his servants bore him on a couch through the palace, and the monastery and the church, that his poor dying eyes might rest once more on all that he had done, and then they brought him back to his lonely, comfortless cell, and left him to die. It was on a September Sabbath morning, in 1598, while listening to the service at this altar, and holding in his hand the same crucifix that fixed the dying eyes of the Emperor his father, that Philip yielded his spirit into the hands of a just as well as merciful God!

We left this sad chamber, and descending a flight of steps made of precious stones, the walls lined with beautiful, polished marbles, we stood in a subterranean chapel, a mausoleum, shelves on each of the eight sides, and on each shelf a bronze sarcophagus, and in each coffin a dead king or queen. The name of each occupant is inscribed on the outer shell. One of the queens scratched her name on her coffin with a pair of scissors before she was put in. She could not have well done it after. There is an altar in this dungeon, and here the late queen of Spain, who is very devout in her way, came once a year and had a service at midnight. It adds nothing to the solemnity to have mass here in the night, for at noonday we had to hold candles in our hands to see our way in and out.

The _Sagrario_ was a more interesting apartment than this. It has some fine paintings. I valued them more than the 7,400 relics which are here preserved with pious care, including the entire bodies of eight or ten saints, twelve dozen whole heads, and three hundred legs and arms. It once had—but the fortunes of war have deprived the house of the treasure—one of the bars on which St. Lawrence was burnt, and one of his feet, with a piece of coal still sticking between its toes! but the coal and the toes are lost _in toto_.

One of the priests, who was leading a company of strangers visiting the place, overheard me asking for the Cellini crucifix, and immediately took us to the choir, and opened the door of a closet in which this remarkable work is carefully preserved. It is a Carrara marble statue of Christ on the cross, and marked by the great Benvenuto himself with his name and the date, 1562. He was the first who made a crucifix in marble, and the patient toil and great genius expended on this work have made it justly esteemed as his master-piece of sculpture.

Yet have I alluded to but one or two out of a thousand things that fix the attention, and impress one rather with astonishment than delight. I have not even mentioned the library, which is the crown of the whole, designed to be the repository of all learning, and in spite of all its sufferings by violence, it is still rich in rare and valuable books and manuscripts. The cases are of ebony and cedar. Jasper and porphyry tables stand through the hall, about 200 feet long, and allegorical paintings adorn the ceilings.

It was refreshing to get out of it, after walking through the palace and the cloisters, and to enjoy the warm sunshine beyond the gloomy walls. Two or three cottages have been built among the groves planted here, and it seems a mercy to children to provide a more cheery home for them than a sepulchral palace could be, though of wrought gold.

Chapter IV.

Madrid—A Sabbath And A Carnival.

A VALET-DE-PLACE who was leading us to church on Sunday morning in Madrid, spoke very fair English, and I asked him where he had learned it. He said, “At the missionary’s school in Constantinople.” He was quite a polyglot, professing to be able to speak seven languages fluently. It was interesting to meet a youth who knew our missionaries there, and entertained a great respect for his old teachers,—and it gave us an idea, too, of the indirect influence which such schools must be exerting, when youth are trained in them, and afterwards embark in other callings than those that are religious in their purpose.

He led us to the Prussian ambassador’s, where the chaplain preaches in the French language. No Protestant preaching was then allowed in Madrid,—none, indeed, in Spain,—except under the flag of another government. The ambassador, or the consul, had the right, of course, to regulate his own household as he pleases; and, under this necessary _privilege_, he has, if he is so disposed, a chaplain, and divine service on Sunday, when his doors are opened to all who choose to attend. The practical working of it is that a regular congregation comes to be established under each flag, if there are so many persons of that country and of a religious tendency as to make it important. In most of the great capitals of Europe there are people of other countries resident for business, health, or pleasure, and they find a place of worship in their own tongue.

The Germans resident in Madrid speak the French language, as well as their own, and the present chaplain preaches in French. He is an earnest, excellent man, and his pulpit abilities would make him greatly useful in a wider sphere than this. In an upper chamber, that would seat fifty persons, a little congregation, not more than twelve or fifteen, had come together to hear the Word. The desk, or pulpit, was habited after the fashion in Germany, with black hangings, embroidered neatly by the hands of the wife of the Prussian ambassador, and with the words in French, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.” I was told that on Christmas and Easter festivals of the church some two or three hundreds of German _Christians_ come to church and to the communion; but the rest of the year their spiritual wants do not require the weekly ordinances, and the congregation rarely exceeds thirty people.

We went after church to the old Palace of the Inquisition. It is now converted into dwellings. Over the main entrance was the inscription, common all over these foreign countries, as in some parts of our own, “_Insured against Fire_.” The poor victims who in former years were dragged under that portal would have been glad to read such words, if they could be interpreted into an assurance that they were to be safe from the fire of an _auto da fe_.

The Spanish Inquisition affords the saddest story in the annals of the human race. Whatever the name or creed of the persecutor,—Jew or Gentile, Roman, Greek, Protestant, or Mahometan,—the saddest of all possible facts is this, that man has put to torture and to death his fellow-man on account of his religious opinions. Let God be praised that in all the earth men now may worship him in their own way, with none to molest or make them afraid.

And it is very well to bear in mind that persecution has its spirit, and some of its power, even where the victims are by law insured against fire. In the press and in the pulpit the venom of bigotry and the bitterness of intolerance may be poured on the heads of those who are guilty of other opinions than ours, and in God’s sight such persecution may be as offensive as the rack and boot of the Inquisition. The spirit of the Master rebukes the use of the sword, even in the hands of Peter, to cut off a servant’s ear, and the same spirit forbids us to be uncharitable towards the meanest of those who have not the light of the grace to see as we see, or to defend Christ in our way.

They have no cathedral in Madrid, but their churches are many, and on Sunday morning they, women especially, go to church. The Spaniards are more devout than the Italians. There is a proverb that to go to Rome is to disbelieve. The people in Spain have not seen Romanism as it has been seen in Italy, until the popular mind is sick of it. But they make short work in Spain of their devotions.

The Prado is their park, on the skirts of the town. And this is not enough for them on Sundays. We saw the crowds pouring out towards one of the gates, some in carriages, but most of them on foot,—men, women, and children, hundreds, thousands, in holiday attire,—and we followed. Beyond the Alcala gate, near which is the bull-ring, half a mile into the country, we came to the meadows over which these pleasure-seeking Castillians had spread themselves to enjoy their national and favorite pastime. A little later in the season, when the weather is warmer, thousands of these people would stop at the bull-ring, and see the battle of men and beasts. It is too cool as yet, and the bulls do not fight well except in hot weather. But it is not too cool to dance out of doors, and for this divertisement these thousands have come. On the wide meadows there is not a house, not a shanty, not a shed or booth. We have passed on the way scores of wine-shops; and there the people can resort if they choose. But on the grounds there is nothing to be had but the pure and blessed air. The people are distributed in groups all over the plain. The grass is green. The sun, a winter sun, is kind and genial. The city lies in full view, with palaces and domes and pinnacles. And in the distance, but in this blazing sun and lucid atmosphere apparently very near, long ranges of mountains stand covered with snow, white, pure, glistening like silver in the sunlight, and forming a magnificent background to the gay picture at our feet. In the centre of each of these many groups a dozen, more or less, of young men and women are dancing to music. This is furnished by one, two, or three musicians, strolling bands, with guitars and violins. Often one is an old man, blind. His wife and daughter are with him, with their instruments. The airs are not wild, not even lively, as compared with those of Italy. But they are spirited, and sometimes familiar to a foreign ear; for the airs of music, like the airs of heaven, travel all around the world. The dances are pretty and modest, singularly tame, and far from being as full of frolic and _abandon_ as one would expect to see in the out-of-door amusements of the common people. For these are the lower classes only. It is the pastime of the sons and daughters of toil, and perhaps want. They were not ill dressed, and most of them were well dressed. But they appeared to be the class of people who had but this day in the week for pleasure, and were now seeking and finding it in a way that cost them little or nothing. More were looking on than danced. Yet the sets changed frequently, and the circle widened as the numbers of dancers grew, and there was always room for more; for the meadows were wide, and the heaven was a roof large enough to cover them all.

And the strangest part of this performance is yet to be mentioned; more than half the men in this frolic of the fields were soldiers of the regular army, in their uniforms, without arms, enjoying a half holiday. They and all the rest, men and women, seemed to be as happy as happy could be. If we had thought the people of Spain, and especially of Madrid, where the government is felt and seen more severely and nearly than elsewhere, to be gloomy, sullen, discontented, miserable, and ready to rise in revolt, such a thought would be put to rout by seeing these soldiers and others, men and women, thousands and thousands, making themselves so easily happy of a Sunday afternoon.

In one of the circles of dancers two young men, better dressed than the rest, were either the worse for liquor, or were feigning to be tipsy. As the other dancers paid no attention to them, and let them amuse themselves in their own way, it is quite probable they were playing the fool. These were the only persons in that multitude, of the lower orders of the city, who gave any sign of having been drinking any thing that could intoxicate. There were scores of wine-shops on the street, within the easy walk of all who wished liquors. It was necessary to pass them going and coming to and from the city. And thousands doubtless “took something to drink,” both going and coming. The young men would treat the girls, and, of course, all would have as much wine as they wished. For it is almost as cheap as water,—cheaper than water in New York perhaps; for there the tax that somebody pays for the use of Croton is something, but here in Spain wine is so cheap that what was left of last year’s vintage has often been emptied on the ground, or used instead of water to mix mortar with! Yet drunkenness is not one of the common vices of Spain.

And so passed my first Sabbath in Spain, worshipping in French with a dozen Christians in the morning, and looking at thousands of the people dancing on the green in the afternoon.

Three days before Lent begins the people give themselves up to the wildest kind of frolic, with a looseness of manner that to a grave and thoughtful foreigner unused to such scenes at home is at first sight exceedingly foolish, and then very stupid. The Carnival is a carne-vale, a farewell to flesh; a grand celebration of the approach of Lent, or the season when _lentiles_, beans or vegetables only, are to be eaten for forty days. As the people see the time coming when for more than a month their religion requires them in a very special manner to abjure the world, the flesh, and the devil, it seems to be their idea to give the last three days of liberty to the enjoyment of these three forms of mammon-worship. If afterwards they served the Lord with half the zeal of these three days of devil-worship, they would be the most pious people on the earth. But to one whose religious prejudices are quite vivid against the nonsense of a Catholic carnival, it seems the queerest way in the world to get ready for serving God by plunging headlong into a scene of mad revelry that utterly abjures all sense and reason, and converts an entire city for three days into a pandemonium.

Yet it is all in such perfectly good humor, so free from riot and violence and drunkenness, that the only fault to be found with it is simply this, that the whole community make fools of themselves. The Romans had a proverb, “It is well to play the fool sometimes,” and perhaps it is. But when the whole town takes leave of its senses, and goes frolicking day after day, if it is a good thing, it is too much of a good thing, and that spoils it all.

Our windows look out upon the Puerta del Sol, the great square of the city. From it radiate the eight chief streets, and through it every moment the tide of life is flowing. Now it is the great centre of the carnival. Along the streets are seen parading small companies of men in masks and fantastic costumes, with all sorts of musical instruments, making harsh melodies as they march. Two or three of the set are constantly soliciting gifts from those they meet, or holding a cap to catch money thrown to them from the people in the windows and balconies, who are looking down to see the sport. Some of these rangers are women in men’s clothes; more are men in petticoats and crinoline, ill concealing their sex, which a close shaven chin and hard features too plainly reveal. In this disguise, great liberties are taken. A young woman stops a man on the sidewalk, claps him on the shoulder, asks him for money, perhaps chucks him under the chin, and sometimes more demonstrative still, she throws her arms around his neck and gives him an affectionate salute in the broad light of day on the most public and crowded thoroughfare. Even this boldness is taken in good part, and seldom or never leads to any quarrel. The men were polite to the women. In no case did I see any rudeness offered by a person in male attire to a female on the street. The maskers were only out in hundreds, while the others, looking on and enjoying, were thousands on thousands. These were in the usual dress of ladies and gentlemen. They expected to find walking somewhat rough, but they were prepared for it, and would have been disappointed had it been otherwise. The maskers wore costumes as various as the fancy of the wearers or the makers could invent them. Some were clothed in white from head to foot, with stripes of red or black; their faces painted white like ghosts, or with horns to look as much like devils as possible. Many were imitation negroes, and this seemed to be a fashionable attire, as if the African were popular among the Spaniards, who once had a great horror of the Moors. Some wore a fantastic head-gear that excited shouts of laughter as they passed. One man strode along with a false head five times the life size, so nicely fitted to his shoulders that it looked to be a sudden expansion of his head into that of a monster. Solemnly the bearer of this prodigious topknot walked the streets, apparently unconscious of the presence of the little-headed race of beings who were laughing at his swelled head.

Carriages, open, splendid barouches, and some with seated platforms prepared for the purpose, drawn by four or six horses, passed by, with six, eight, and even twelve maskers, all clad in the most inconceivably ludicrous robes, with queer hats and trimmings; and some of them with musical instruments, singing, gesticulating, bowing to the ladies in the windows, and exchanging salutations with the people in the way. The drivers and postilions and footmen were all rigged in livery to match the costumes of the company in the carriage, who thus aped the nobility and even royalty itself in its mockery of stately grandeur. And in the midst of these maskers, carriages with elegant ladies, in full dress for riding, go by, and among them, with his legs hanging over the side of the carriage, is one of the most fantastically got-up maskers, whose outlandish costume and ridiculous situation call out tremendous applause.

On the Prado, the great park of the city, thousands of elegant equipages are out in the afternoon, and the most fashionable people of Madrid are in the frolic. The ladies are loaded with sugar-plums to throw among the maskers, and these gay fellows will rush up to any carriage, leap on the steps, and demand a supply. On the walks, an old dowager in a splendid velvet cloak and dress, masked and representing an ancient belle, got up regardless of expense, attracts marked attention as she displays her fan and feathers, and struts as if in a drawing-room where she imagines herself admired. An old monk hobbles along, as if broken down with age and poverty. A procession of priests mocks at religion itself, in a country where we had thought it a capital crime to make fun of the priesthood.

And there goes the Pope himself; a man has actually mounted a hat like the Pope’s, and with white robes and gold lace has made a disguise that tells its story instantly. And the people laugh to see it. Nothing is too sacred nor too dignified to be travestied here. A company of mock soldiers pretend to keep order by making confusion more confounded. By some strange metamorphosis a man has turned himself into a very creditable goose, and waddles along most naturally, having some wires at his command with which he works his bill, his wings, and tail. A bear on horseback rides up, and Bruin is received with bravos. An ox is mounted also on a horse, and then a wolf; and even the devil is represented on horseback, and a woman rides astride behind him and her arms around him, a hideous, incongruous, but exceedingly ludicrous spectacle. Her hoops spread far behind, covering the horse’s hips and tail, so that the figure is half horse, half devil, and the other half woman. One man, as an orang-outang, leads and exhibits another dressed in the same way. Parties of dancers, all in these ridiculous costumes, form a ring and dance the fandango, with castanets and cymbals and guitars, executing the freest flings and giving themselves to the wildest _abandon_ in the public streets. Others, men and women, disguised as if in their night-clothes and ready to go to bed, are wandering about, pretending to be lost, and their appearance is so comical that one almost forgets it is play, and pities the poor wanderers.

But the description is growing more wearisome than the scene itself. Nonsense all, but such nonsense as makes one laugh at first and then feel sad that grown-up men and women can find amusement, day after day, in such infinite folly. And where the religion comes in, it is hard to see. Yet we observe that our American and English friends who have leanings through their own church towards the Church of Rome, take a wonderful interest in the carnival. They have some associations with it, and the fast that follows, that give to all this sport some significance quite incomprehensible to the uncovenanted unbelievers in the outer courts.

Chapter V.

Madrid—Palace—Bank—Picture-Gallery.

WHEN Napoleon, as conqueror of Spain, entered the royal palace of Madrid (it was in 1808, his brother Joseph, the new-made king of Spain, being at his side), the great captain paused on the splendid marble staircase; and, as the magnificence of the mansion burst upon him, he turned to his brother, and said, in his epigrammatic way of putting his thoughts, “My brother, you will be better lodged than I.”

It is far more splendid than the Tuileries, or any palace in France, England, Germany, or Italy. It cost more than five millions of dollars a hundred years ago; and that was a much greater sum of money than now. It has been enlarged and embellished from year to year ever since. When we drove up to the grand court, it was so formidably filled with cavalry that we thought the predicted insurrection was imminent, and the army had been summoned to the defence of the palace. Not at all. These mounted soldiers are only the regular guard. In this inner court, or square, the cavalry, in long line and fierce array, are ready for a fight with the revolutionists, if they are brave enough, or mad enough, to try their hands in a tussle with the troops of government, trained and paid to defend the existing order of things. From the windows of the armory this martial parade was imposing, though there were but a few hundreds of mounted men. The officers were clad in polished steel back and breast plates, which flash brightly in the sun. The uniform is brilliant, and the riding splendid. Artillery companies, with cannon mounted, drawn by horses, manœuvre in the square, crossing and recrossing constantly, under the eye of the royal household. A long line of lounging people look on also; and, as they go and come all day, an impression is certainly insinuated by this military parade that the government is always ready to take care of itself.

[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.]

The palace stands on the verge of a height that commands a wide and exciting view of the plains of Castile. The thought of what those plains have seen in the last two thousand years makes them of more than romantic interest to one who takes in the past with the present. What successive tides of conquest have there ebbed and flowed! To know that Charles V. and Napoleon and Wellington have followed one another up those shaded avenues to this summit, with their legions, is enough to invest them with grandeur.

And here in this armory is the very sword that Gonzalo, of Cordova, wore, and the sword with which Ferdinand, the saint and hero, smote the Moors; and the sword of Charles V., and the complete suit of armor which the great emperor often wore, and in which he was painted by Titian; and the suit of armor worn by Boabdil, the last Moorish king who sat on the throne in this Alhambra, and who left it behind, doubtless, when he delivered his sword into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the foot of the hill on which I am writing. We had thought revolvers a modern invention, but here are elegant pistols, on the same principle, used in the seventeenth century, and now as good as new. A crown, a sword, a helmet, or something else, illustrates the life of all the heroes of Spanish history; and the number of warlike memorials here displayed is about three thousand. How men managed to fight while clad from head to foot in these suits of steel armor is to me, a non-combatant, one of the mysteries of the art of war. We read of tournaments, and—more to be wondered at—of battle-fields, where all the knights are clothed from head to foot in the identical garments that are now before us, or in others made after the same pattern; and how, with such a weight of steel and so constrained in the freedom of action, they could manage to wield their swords and thrust their spears, I do not understand. They were not men of more physical power than our soldiers. Some of them were less than the present average size of men. But they were mighty men with the sword. The Toledo blade was quite equal to that of Damascus; and the helmet was often insufficient to save the brain, when the sword, in a strong hand, came down, cleaving through steel and skull.

Two or three hundred horses stood in the stables; and the grooms are only too happy, for a consideration to be paid at every door, to show these pampered and famous steeds. Each one of them has a name, in large letters, over his head, and on his blanket. Spain has some celebrated breeds of horses, but, like every thing else in Spain, they are run out, and the stock is only kept up by importation. It is so even with the _Merino_ sheep, which belongs to Spain, but would have been extinct ere this, if it had not been perpetuated and improved abroad. You may see five hundred finer horses any pleasant afternoon in the Central Park, in New York, than any one of these pet horses of royalty. But you will never see, I hope, such a wealth and folly of equipage as the hundred carriages, and more sets of harness, and plumes, and liveries, and coachmen’s hats, and velvet saddles, and embroidered hammer-cloths, which fill long apartments, and are shown together with the gilded chairs of state in which the king or queen is borne by hand in processions, and the chariot on which the royal personage is enthroned, with a canopy overhead, trumpeters below, and herald angels above, for the coronation parade. The carriages used by successive monarchs are here preserved in long lines of antiquated grandeur, even to the one in which Crazy Jane, the widow, carried about with her the corpse of her handsome husband, Philip the First. Queer woman that she was, jealous to insanity, she would not let her husband be buried while she lived; and now she lies by his side, down here in Granada, in the cathedral, and her marble effigy gives her an expression so gentle and loving, you would not believe she was ever the victim of the fiercest and meanest passion that makes hell of a woman’s heart.

I have been taking you with me through the palace and armory and royal stables, to give you a type of Spain. The poorest of all the governments, compared with its population and resources, it has these contrasts of wealth and poverty that mark its want of judgment, principle, and power. In the stables is invested a capital of more than half a million of dollars! This prodigality is royal, but also absurd. The people see it, and the world has gone by the age, when gilt trappings and gorgeous pageants struck the multitudes dumb with the reverence of royal glory.

The city of Madrid is well built, and has the appearance of a modern French town. Indeed, it is more French than Spanish in its out-of-door look, and the French language is very largely spoken in the shops and private families of culture. The intercourse now so frequent and ready with France by means of the railway and telegraph, and the abolition of all passport regulations and annoyances, have given the Spanish capital a start, and it will undoubtedly make rapid advancement.

But there is nothing rapid in Spain just yet. Opposite the hotel in Madrid where I was staying, an old building had been torn down to make room for another. Workmen were engaged in removing the debris to renew the foundation. You would suppose that horses and carts, or wheelbarrows and shovels, would be in use. Such modern improvements had not reached the capital of Spain. One man with a broad hoe hauled the dirt into a basket made of grass, holding half a bushel; another man took the basket and carried it a rod to another man, who handed it to another a few feet above him, and he emptied it on a pile of dirt up there, and sent the basket back to be filled again. And so, day after day, a job that with our tools and appliances would be done in a few hours, was here spun out indefinitely. Yet the palaces and cathedrals and fortresses of the southern climes have all been erected at this snail’s pace, numbers and cheapness making up for enterprise and force. In Paris, in the street, a small steam-engine was at work to mix mortar, and the ease with which the process was put through revealed the secret of the wonderfully rapid transformations going on in that ever increasingly beautiful city. Here in Spain, to this day, where there are smooth, good roads for wheels, they still put a couple of baskets across the back of a donkey, and fill them with dirt or brick or stones, and so transport them, even when they are putting up the largest buildings. The architecture of Spain is more imposing than that of any other country in Europe. It is the climate that makes men differ so much in their physical as well as mental manifestations.

To see the mode of doing business in Spain, take the simple story of one day’s work of mine in getting some money in Madrid. Holding a “letter of credit” which is promptly honored in any part of the world, and is just as good for the gold in Cairo or Calcutta as it is in London, I went in search of a Spanish banker to draw a hundred pounds sterling, say five hundred dollars. Anastazio led the way, and soon brought us to the house where the man of money held his court. Being shown up stairs, through two or three passages and an ante-chamber, we were at length ushered into _the_ presence. Señor Romero, the banker, was a man of fifty, dressed, or rather undressed, in a loose morning gown or wrapper, a red cap on his head, slippers on his feet, and a pipe in his mouth. A clerk was sitting near to do his bidding. I presented my letter. It was carefully read, first by the clerk, then by the principal. A long consultation followed, carried on in a low tone, and in Spanish, quite unintelligible to me, if it had been audible. It was finally determined to let me have the money, and after an amount of palaver sufficient for the negotiation of a government loan from the Rothschilds, and taking the necessary receipt and draft from me, I was presented with a check on the Bank of Spain. When I had fancied the delays were over, they had only just begun. The bank was in a distant part of the city, and thither we hastened, taking a cab, to save all the time we could. The bank is a large and imposing edifice of white stone. In the vestibule was a guard of soldiers. A porter stopped us as we were about to enter the inner door. We must await our turn as some one else was inside! One at a time was the rule. Benches were there, and we sat down, admiring silently the _moderation_ of banking business in Spain. At length our turn came. We entered a room certainly a hundred feet long. Tables extended the whole length. Behind them sat clerks very busy doing nothing. We were told to pass on, and on, to the lower end of the room, where we entered another, the back parlor, or private room of the officers. They were closeted out of sight, smoking, of course, and giving their wisdom to the business in hand. I presented the check at a hole out of which a hand was put to take it. I saw nothing more. We sat down and waited. Waiting is a Spanish institution. Everybody waits. Nobody gets any thing without it. We waited, and waited, and waited, and at last the little hole opened again, the mysterious hand was thrust out with the——money, you suppose; not a bit, but with the check approved. We must present it at the table or counter for payment. Returning to the long room, we presented the check, and were directed to the proper bureau. And here, of course, we got the money. Not yet. Bills of the Bank of Spain were given us, and when I required the gold, I was told that gold was paid only at the bureau of the bank in another street. Thither we now pursued our weary way. It was a rear entrance of the same bank building. A long line of gold hunters was ahead of us. We stood in the cue, and at last were inside. In the ante-room we had to wait so long that we took to the bench again. At last, admission being granted, we were told that only _one_ could be admitted with a single draft. We sent Antanazio in, and returned to the door. Here we were told that no _exit_, only _entrance_, was allowed at the rear! Explaining the case, we got out, and returning to the front, patiently as possible, we looked for the appearance of Antanazio loaded with gold. At last, for the longest delay has an end, the man emerged with the money in his hands. It had cost me from two to three hours in the middle of the day to draw this money, which in New York, London, Paris, or any city out of Spain, would have cost five minutes or less. And I have been so particular in the detail, because it lets you into the mode of doing business in the capital city, and the greatest bank of this country.

Until the French and English companies pushed railways into Spain, travel and mails were on the slow-coach system. When the royal person made a journey, it was like the march of an army, such was the retinue required for comfort and display. And as the railways are now completed only along a few great routes, the mails are largely carried in the diligences and coaches expressly made for the purpose. It is said, and there is no reason to disbelieve it, that down to the year 1840, when a Spaniard proposed to himself the danger and toil of a journey, it was his invariable custom to summon his lawyer and make his will; his physician, to learn if his health were adequate to the undertaking; and finally his priest, to confess his sins and get timely absolution. It is not regarded now so formidable an excursion to go across the kingdom, but the native travel is so little that the railroads are very unprofitable. If it were not for _freight_ they would not be supported at all. They have, however, greatly increased the correspondence of the country, and the rate of postage has been reduced, so that it is about as low as in other European countries. But the government keeps a sharp look-out upon the letters that come and go. In times when conspiracies are snuffed in every breeze, it would be quite unsafe for any one to entrust a secret in a letter going by mail. A government spy would be sure to have his hand on it and his eye in it, before it reached its address. The letters in the post-office at Madrid are held four hours after the arrival of the mail, before they are ready for delivery. The mail from the north, the London and Paris mail, comes in at ten o’clock A.M. We must _wait_ until two o’clock P.M. for our letters. Then a list of all letters not directed to some particular street and number, or to some post-office box, is posted up in the hall of the office,—an alphabetical list. You look over the list, and if you find a letter for yourself, you ask for it at the proper window. If you are a stranger, your passport is demanded. But you had been told before coming to Spain that no passports are required, and now you must have one merely to get your letters. In default of a passport, you must in some way establish your identity. This is not always easy in a foreign country, but then nothing is easy in Spain. I got no letter from the post-office addressed to me while I was in Spain! The noted rebel, General Prim, was a dreadful bugbear to the authorities, and all letters addressed to me were suspected by the local postmasters to be intended for the General. They were therefore sent to the government, or otherwise disposed of. No efforts to recover them were successful. Much good may they do the people who had to read them. Some of them had hard work, I know.

Telegraphs are spreading over Spain, as they are over the world, civilized or not. Spain is one of the last countries where they could become popular; but the business of any kingdom that has relations with the outside world must be armed with the telegraph, or it cannot hold its own. In traversing wild and secluded parts of the Peninsula, I have been surprised by finding the telegraph poles set up, and the wire stretching on, over hill and dale. Spain is slow, and the telegraph is not demanded here by the energy and enterprise of the people as it is elsewhere. Despatches of more than a hundred words are not sent. To or from any part of the Peninsula ten words may be sent for about twenty-five cents, twenty words for fifty cents, thirty words for seventy-five cents; but the count includes each word written by the sender, date, address, signature, and if a word is underscored it counts two. Great precautions are taken to insure accuracy in transmission, and a small extra charge is made for delivery.

Before coming to Spain I had been told that the picture-gallery in Madrid is the richest in the world. It seemed to me an idle tale, the boast of boasting Spaniards, repeated until perhaps somebody believed, as I certainly did not. But having seen it, day after day, for a week, I cheerfully cast a vote in its favor. It is superior to any other in Europe; and, of course, in the world. It is not complete in the series of art studies. There are gaps of time which the student may desire to see filled. But there are few who visit these great European galleries as learners. The world comes to see them for the momentary pleasure to be found in the contemplation of the pictures. And they will be astonished to find that so many and so splendid pictures have been gathered and preserved in the Spanish capital.

The gallery is open to the public only on _Sundays_, but the director allows it to be shown every day to strangers, who are expected to give a fee to the attendants. On rainy days it is always shut; an obvious reason is, that visitors will soil the floors with their shoes, but a better reason is that the gallery is so badly lighted that in gloomy weather some of the pictures are quite invisible.

Who would suppose that sixty pictures by Reubens are to be seen in one gallery in Spain! and fifty-three by Teniers; and ten grand pictures by Raphael; and forty-six by Murillo; and sixty-four by Velasquez, some of them very large and magnificent; and twenty-two by Van Dyck; and _forty-three of Titian_, who spent three years in Madrid, by invitation of Charles V.; ten of Claude Lorraine; and twenty-five by Paul Veronese; and twenty-three by Snyder; and more than thirty by Tintoretto!!! There are more than two thousand here. Among so many, of course, some are good for nothing, as in every large collection. But one gallery in the world has masterpieces only,—that is in the Vatican. And _there_ you have less than a hundred pictures, all told. But they are all great. Here, as in Florence and Dresden, good, bad, and indifferent have been hung together; and perhaps the contrast makes the good appear better, and the bad worse.

Murillo, the greatest of Spanish painters, is here in his glory. We have associated his name with his “Immaculate Conceptions” more than with any other of his works. One copy was brought to America a few years ago, and is now in the gallery of W. H. Aspinwall, Esq. A duplicate is in the Louvre, at Paris. And still another is in Madrid. These are three originals, undoubtedly, and they have been copied in every style of human art, especially in Paris, until they are as common as heads of the Saviour, all the world over. Yet this is not the _Murillo_,—not his “Conception.” It is a grand conception by the artist, but it is not the great picture of that subject on which, more than any other, his fame is founded. This is in another attitude, with another expression; the Virgin is looking downward, and not gazing, in an ecstasy, heavenward. The artist, in this picture, imagines the Virgin Mary at the moment she becomes conscious of the fact that by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost she is to be the mother of the Son of God! The accessories of the painting are of no account, but into the countenance of the Virgin he would throw the expression such as a spotless maiden might be supposed to have when first alive to such a wondrous, awful, yet transporting and delightful thought, “I,—I,—of all the daughters of Israel, am the highly favored among women. Of me is to be the Messiah! I am the mother of the promised Saviour!”

Not far from this is a picture of the Vision of St. Bernard, exhibiting marvellous skill. The head is one of those prodigies of the painter’s art, that is to haunt the memory in after years. Like the “Communion of St. Jerome,” in the Vatican, to see it is to have it photographed in the mysterious chamber of the brain. Raphael painted one of his most remarkable pictures, “The Christ sinking under His Cross,” for a convent in Sicily. It is said by some to be a greater work than the “Transfiguration,” which is held to be the finest picture existing. To me, this in Madrid is the most impressive, the most nearly perfect. It is taken at the moment when Simon, the Cyrenian, attempts to lift the crushing cross, while the patient sufferer, with a face radiant with love and holy resignation, says to the weeping women near, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but weep for yourselves and for your children.”

Titian’s equestrian portrait of Charles V. is sublime,—like a majestic mountain, or a mighty rock in a desert. The solemn grandeur of the picture is indescribable. The man and his times, a whole volume of biography and history, on one grand tableau, seen and remembered. Perhaps it would be as well to forget the women that Titian seems to have been fond of painting. Two of them here are not less perfect, many think they are more perfect, than the Venus of the Tribune. In other times the zealous priesthood condemned these nudities to the flames, with heretics, as corrupters of the people; but some have been saved.

The picture that I desired more than any other to carry away and cherish as a life-long treasure, is one by Correggio. After his resurrection the Saviour appeared to Mary, and she supposed it was the gardener; but Jesus, turning, said to her, “MARY,”—and the truth burst upon her, it was her Lord! That moment of transport is the time the artist has seized for the representation of the kneeling and rejoicing Mary and Jesus. The love and tenderness in his look, the joy and reverence in hers! What beauty, too: how the yellow hair falls in living lustre on her fair shoulders, and her eyes speak the full expression of her yearning soul. “Jesus said unto her, ‘MARY.’”

In another hall I found a picture of great merit, unmentioned by the guide-book, and by a painter unknown to me even by name before. It is a Virgin and Child, with four venerable saints kneeling before them. The artist is Bias del Prado. Few pictures in any gallery deserve more admiration than this. The heads of the old men are done with great power, and the thoughtful feeling in the face of the Virgin shows that the artist had both the genius to conceive, and the skill to create, an idea on the canvas, quite equal to the best of many others who have won a world-wide fame. And scattered through these long apartments, in narrow halls and basement rooms, in bad lights, and some almost in the dark, are many gems of rare value, “blushing unseen,” and worth a better place, and deserving wider renown. It would be tedious to read even a brief mention of the celebrated pictures of the famous old masters here, and that form so large a part of the attractions of Europe.

There are very few minor galleries in Madrid. Probably there has been a lack both of private wealth and taste to make collections. In one of these we found Murillo’s “Queen Isabel of Hungary healing the Lepers,” a picture that would be admired as one of his greatest and best, if it were not so true to life as to make one almost sick to look at it. But this is the height of the highest art. Birds have been deceived by painted fruit. Bees have sought honey in flowers on the walls. And perhaps this cheating of the senses, even to disgust, is the perfection of human skill. But the imitation of the _material_ is easy. If portrait painting were merely the reproduction of the form and features, it is the lowest department of the art. But to conceive the expression that belongs to the character of a saint, a prophet, a hero, a sibyl, a Madonna, and thus to create an ideal that will demonstrate its reality and truthfulness to an unbelieving or indifferent world, challenging admiration and asserting its own immortality, this is the attribute of genius only, and such is not the birth of every day or age.

Chapter VI.

Toledo—Its Fleas, Landlords, Antiquities, And Lunatics.

Ignorant of the state of civilization in the ancient city of Toledo, the capital of Gothic Spain, the glory of the Jews and the Moors when they lived luxuriously on its airy heights, we had imagined it easy enough to find lodgings for a night. Unconscious of the fate awaiting us, we put up at the Hotel Lino, the largest and best in the city; and here we sought sleep. The search was vain. For the fleas are always going about seeking whom they may devour. We fell a prey to them and to the landlords too. Surviving the bloody night, we left a weary, wretched bed at eight in the morning, and ordered breakfast with coffee. At nine it was announced as ready. In the room where it was served three waiters attended us, each one smoking a cigar in our faces, as we sat and they stood around. The coffee was not on the table. On asking for it we were told there was none in the house.

“And is there none in Toledo?”

“Perhaps so.”

“Well, we will wait until you bring it. Give us some butter.”

“There is no butter in the house.”

“Is there none in Toledo?”

“None that is fit to eat; it is all rancid.”

[Illustration: TOLEDO.]

After a time some wretched stuff for coffee was brought from a restaurant, and we made a breakfast, paid as much for it as if we had been in Paris, and left the house in disgust.

The city stands on a hill; it is up, up, up, in a succession of narrow, irregular, crooked, clean, and curious streets, showing at every step the vestiges of successive stages of civilization, and often suddenly revealing monuments of departed peoples that arrest the attention and excite wondering interest. The Goths succeeded the Romans. The Moors drove out the Goths, and, like eagles perched among these rocks, defied the storms of centuries. Here the master of empires, the great Charles V., reigned in grandeur, and gave laws to the world. It is a fitting place for such a history as it has; and no other city has a more romantic life. Indeed, romance has done so much to embellish the story of Toledo, it is difficult to be in it, and study it here on its own rocks, without asking for its enchanted towers, and haunted caves, and knights, with magic swords and spectre horses, and its 200,000 mighty men and beautiful women, that once made this castle-crowned crag the glory of Spain, and as famous in the earth as Babylon or Damascus.

It is more Oriental in its appearance than any city we have yet seen in Spain. But it is too far north, and too far up in the air, to be adapted to the life of Orientals. Its houses are usually low; and they have the court in the midst of them, out of which doors open into the several apartments. Many of them are very old, five hundred years, at least, and repetitions of those that stood on the same site before; for this reproduction of itself, from age to age, is a feature of the peoples and climes with which Scripture history has made us familiar. Many of these old houses are fine specimens of the Moorish manner of building; but with this, perhaps the predominant style, is blended more or less of the Roman, the Gothic, and the Saracenic, and every style except the modern; for Toledo is a city of the dead past, and no resurrection is before it. The Spanish chroniclers claim that Toledo was founded at the same time with the creation of the world, but who lived in it before the human race was made they do not help us to understand. Others less ambitious find that Nebuchadnezzar, and others that Hercules, laid the first stones.

The last of the Goths who sat on the throne of Toledo was Roderick. And when weighed down with the guilt of a seducer and a betrayer of his friend, he went forth from Toledo in his chariot of ivory, and, with his mailed legions, marched to the banks of the Guadalquiver, and at Guadalete encountered the flood of Moorish barbarism just then setting in upon Spain, he disappeared, the city began its downward career, and no emperors, no bishops, no kings, have since been able to purge it from the sin and the shame of the perfidious Roderick.

In after centuries, when the Moors were expelled and the cross again supplanted the crescent, the archbishops of Toledo were more than kings, and lived here in luxury, and wealth, and grandeur, without a parallel in the history of the church. Great patrons of art and science, they founded universities and cultivated the arts of peace, while they were often plunging the country into war, which they waged with valor and skill. Under them the city reached a degree of splendor unsurpassed in the dreamy reign of Oriental voluptuousness and taste. But when it succumbed, as it did to the great German Czar, and the court was removed to Valladolid, its sun went down, never to rise again.

The cathedral is a glory, even in Spain, which is richer in cathedrals than any other country. Toledo has always been favored by the Romish Church. It is believed by many that the Virgin Mary came down from heaven, in person, to attend the investiture of one of its archbishops, and there is not to be found a grander and more beautiful Gothic temple than this. As we entered it the dim light that was chasing away the shades from among the vast columns and the lofty arches gradually brightened as we became more accustomed to it, and a sense of majestic proportions and solemn grandeur took possession of the soul. A service was in progress, and we paused till it was concluded, for it matters not what the form of religious worship, and however much our views may differ from those engaged in it, it is unseemly to be gazing at the temple while its ministers are serving at its altar. In the midst of the service a priest was receiving a young woman’s confession. As she put up her lips to his ear to whisper her penitential words, she beat upon her breast with one hand, as if she were in agony of soul. Her tale of sin completed, she rose from her knees, bowed low again, kissed her confessor’s extended hand, and went away.

Toledo and its priesthood have been famous for their devotion to the strictest orders and dogmas of the church, till Rome itself scarcely stands higher for holiness and orthodoxy. In the disputes that have at different times agitated the Romish communion, they have not been afraid to appeal directly to the judgment of God, and to claim his verdict in their favor. In the great contest about the proper form of words in the mass, when the old missals were used in Spain, in spite of the orders to substitute the Gregorian mass, or the Roman improved form, the first appeal to the divine judgment was in favor of Toledo, and the early missals. Again the trial was demanded; and the old and newer missals were brought out, great folio volumes, into one of the public squares, and, in presence of the city, fire was applied to them. The older was burnt to ashes, and the newer survived the ordeal. Toledo was not willing to abide even by this very conclusive test, and finally it was settled by blending the two masses into one.

Their richest and most sacred chapel in the cathedral is the Muzarabe, or Mixed Arabic; so called because it was built to preserve the forms of the old Gothic service, such as was used when the Goths consented to live under the dominion of the Moors while allowed their own religious rites. In this cathedral lie the ashes, and over them are the tombs of some of the early kings of Spain, and several of those grand archbishops whose reign was not less kingly than that of kings. Cardinal Albornoz died in Italy, and the Pope sent his body home to be buried here. To save the expense of transportation, for there was no express company, not even a steamboat then (1364) to bring it,—Urban V. issued a decree granting a plenary indulgence to all who would lend a hand in carrying the dead cardinal on his long journey. Gladly did the poor peasantry bear the body on their shoulders from one town to another till it reached Toledo. In front of one of the chapels I was suddenly arrested by a strange Latin inscription in a brass plate in the pavement. It was in these words:—

“Hic Jacet Pulvis, Cinis, Nullus.”

_Here lies dust, ashes, nothing else._ Over the bones of one of the most powerful cardinals who ever reigned in Spain, and himself called a king maker, the epitaph is eloquent: perhaps an affectation, however, of humility, a virtue for which Fernandez de Portocarrero was not illustrious in his life.

The Virgin Mary has been pleased to come from heaven to this cathedral, as I have said, and if any one doubts it, he can see the very stone on which she first set foot as she alighted from her aerial excursion. And now the faithful kiss this precious stone, touching with their loving lips the very spot which her foot once pressed. Her image is clad with gold and precious stones and costly raiment, crowns and bracelets and chains, the gifts of royal hands, and the greatest ladies of the kingdom are her maids of honor. On gala-days she is borne in state through the streets, and honors are paid to her at every step, as the Queen of Queens.

A sleepy old porter let us into the ALCAZAR. Al-casa-czar is the house of Cæsar, or the czar’s house, the king’s house, the palace.

[Illustration: THE ALCAZAR.]

The palace, or what was once a palace, crowns the summit of the hill on which the old city of Toledo stands. Around the base of the rock below the Tagus rushes rapidly, and away in every direction stretches the wide plain, gloomy, desolate, and yet grand in its storied past. It is not certain that the Moorish, still less certain that the Gothic kings preceding them, had their royal residence on this bleak height. But the Catholic kings for centuries held their courts on this spot, and the prints of their hands are visible everywhere. The porter who opened the door for us is a model of a Spanish official. Too proud to be a door-keeper, and, with nothing else to do, he would impress even a stranger with the idea that he was born with a higher destiny than to tend a gate. It was a pleasure to him, evidently, to tell us we must not go here, nor there, nor anywhere, except where it was of no use to go; and the scanty information he was willing to impart was extracted with difficulty, and worth nothing then.

We stood in the midst of a spacious square, the patio, or court, and on its four sides rose the walls of the ancient palace. Charles V. and Philip II. rebuilt the most of it on the ruins holding some of the apartments that date as far back as Alonzo X.; and in modern times the hoof of the war demon has trodden the stairways and galleries and gorgeous halls, until what with English and French soldiery, and some of other nations more barbarous still, the Alcazar of Toledo is a more comfortable residence for bats and owls than kings and fair princesses. Two or three proud peacocks were strutting in the warm sunshine of the patio, displaying their gaudy plumes and arching their graceful necks, reminding us of other beauties who had often gone blazing through these doors, with radiant jewels and shining robes, yet, in all their glory, were not arrayed like one of these. This patio shows, on its four sides, two rows of galleries, one over the other, supported each of them by thirty arches, with columns crowned with Corinthian capitals, embellished with the arms of the many kingdoms that Charles V. had conquered. A staircase, designed by Philip II. while he was in England, and built under orders sent by him while there, leads up to the royal apartments, long since deserted, and now worth seeing only because they were once the home of men and women whose names are part of the history of the world.

An English gentleman said to me in the rail-car in Spain one day, “I should be glad to have you tell me what it is that impresses you the most in coming from America and travelling in Europe.” I answered that it required some time to make a fitting reply to so great an inquiry. “Well,” he said, “will you take fifteen minutes to think, and then give me the result?” I replied, “I am ready to answer now: what impresses me more than all else is, that these old countries, having been what they once were, are _what I find them now_.”

It is the law of the earth, I suppose, and what has been will be, and so on to the end of time.

We left the melancholy palace to its porter, its peacocks, and the bats, and wound our way down and around the corkscrew streets, narrow, close, and dirty, admiring the ancient Moorish gates and doors, studded with iron balls. The older doors have two knockers, one high for a horseman to use without dismounting; and, the gate being opened, he would ride right into the court. We were looking for the Church of San Juan de los Reyes, and soon found it, a church that dates back to the Moorish-Gothic period, or the time when the severity of Gothic grandeur was adorned with the more florid embellishments which Moorish art introduced into Spain. On the outer walls are suspended the massive iron chains which were found on the limbs of the Christian captives when Granada was conquered by Ferdinand and Isabella; and the rescued prisoners hung up their chains on this church as thank-offerings. And still farther down the hill we come to the Bridge of St. Martin, and here are plainly the ruins of the old Moorish castle and palace. A square tower on the water’s edge bears the name, to this day, _Florinde_, and tradition says it was here that Roderick unluckily saw her while she was bathing. The rest of the story we have hinted at already.

Irving, in his bewitching Spanish tales, gives a marvellous account of the Cave of Hercules, which is said to extend three leagues beyond the river, and is full of chapels and genii and enchanted warriors. To visit it has cost kings their crowns; and the terrible sounds that are heard, and the rushing winds assailing the bold explorer, make the attempt too formidable for modern valor. The entrance is from the Church de San Gines, but is now walled up. In fact, it was never unwalled, except in the fancies of romantic historians.

One day, long time ago, as the Cid was riding through Toledo, his horse stopped suddenly, and knelt before a wall built against a bank of earth. The hill was opened, and within was found a niche, and in the niche an image of the Saviour, with the same lamps burning in it which the Goths had put there long centuries agone. A Moorish mosque is standing opposite, which has been converted into a Christian church, and in it the first mass was celebrated in 1085. It takes its name from the legend of the Cid, and is called Christo de la Luz. It is perhaps the smallest church in Toledo, only twenty-two feet square, yet the quaintest and most curious thing to be found in the city; short columns support arches in the shape of a horse-shoe, and three narrow naves, crossing each other, cut up the church into nine vaults. There is nothing in it worth seeing.

It took us half an hour to find the sacristan to open the door of Santo Tome, or St. Thomas, where we went to see a famous picture by El Grecco, a burial scene, of considerable power, and were it not that Spain has hundreds of finer pictures than this, it would be worth the time it cost us to see it.

Passing through the Zodocover, the largest public square in the city, where in the “good old times” of torture for the church, the poor unbelievers in papal faith have been made spectacles before the world, I met a boy with a pop-gun, anxious to show his skill in shooting with that formidable weapon. Yielding to his urgent desires, I set up a bit of money which he was to hit and take. A dense crowd, a hundred certainly, were the idle gazers on this ridiculous scene, forming a ring around me and the boy! I confess to a sense of great amusement when I stood where cardinals and bishops and priests, with armed soldiers and executioners, had burnt heretics in sight of kings, and multitudes thronging the tiers of balconies that look down into this square. It was certainly more human, not to say Christian, for me to divert this idle crowd by setting up coppers for a boy to shoot at with a pop-gun, than for my illustrious predecessors to entertain the populace of Toledo with the sight of martyrs burning at a stake.

Tired of walking, for Toledo is so up-and-down, that you might as well ride on a ladder, we entered a café for refreshments. In the wide, open court was a deep well sunk into the solid rock on which the city stands, and the water thereof was as cool and sparkling and delicious as that which the woman of Samaria gave to him who told her all things that ever she did. The saloon was fifty feet long or more, filled with marble-top tables, and men were eating and drinking, playing dominoes, and smoking. It was toward the close of the day. Of all the people there, none called for spirits, scarcely any asked for wine. Coffee and chocolate were the principal drinks. There was no noise, no gambling. It was chilly, and the servant brought in a brazier filled with live coals, and set it near us. Others drew around it, as they did in the high priest’s court-yard when Peter denied his Lord. Many Oriental customs brought in by the Moors are still retained in Spain. I made an excuse for wandering up to the house-top, and found the houses so closely built against each other, with no intervening spaces, that you could easily look into your neighbor’s, and sometimes see what was quite as well not seen.

While here we looked about for some specimens of the famous blades, which have made Toledo as celebrated as Damascus itself in this line. But we found nothing worth seeing. The manufactory of arms is outside of the town, and has no reputation beyond that of others in Spain. England or Connecticut will furnish as perfect a sword to-day as Toledo. Yet this is only another, and a very striking illustration of what Spain is, compared with what Spain was. As far back as under the Romans, Toledo had a character for the perfection of its weapons of steel. The Toledo blade has been a proverb for temper ever since.

The idea has prevailed, and the workers in metals in Toledo have not been unwilling to encourage it, that the waters of the river Tagus have virtues to impart peculiar firmness to the steel that is cooled in them. The manufacturers, of course, have long been constituted into a guild, or corporation, and the secrets of the trade preserved with care. So long ago as in the ninth century Abdur-rhaman II. gave a great impulse to the art in Toledo, and its fame was spread still wider. A thousand years have rolled away since that time, and now, in the nineteenth century, they do not make as good weapons as they did then.

In the museum at Madrid we saw the splendid swords which the famous warriors of Spain have worn, and, in the saloon of the Director of the Generaliffe, in Granada, the identical sword of Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings; but they make no such steel now. Indeed, the steel they use is imported from England, just as they keep up the stock of horses and cattle and sheep, by importations from other countries. It is very probable that long, thin blades, that may be curled up like a ribbon, can be produced in China, or Persia, or Sheffield, as well as here. The men of Milan and Florence made as good swords as these. The use of fire-arms naturally diminishes the value of a sword as a weapon of war.

Spanish people do not go CRAZY! Now and then there is a lunatic in Spain, but, as compared with the United States, or England, or France, the Spanish people manage to keep what wits they have. Just outside of Toledo there is a lunatic asylum. It is the successor of the one that Don Quixote ought to have been kept in, and which is mentioned in that knight-errant’s biography, the first work of fiction that I ever perused, and which then, in childhood, fired me with a desire to visit Spain. Don Quixote was crazy; and there may be thousands crazy whom the world do not reckon so.

In London the latest tables show that one person in every 200 is insane. In Paris one in every 222 is in a lunatic asylum, or ought to be. In Madrid, the capital of Spain, only one in every 3,350. In the year 1860 there were 2,384 lunatics in Spain, when the population was 15,673,481; and this would show one insane person to 6,566 inhabitants. In 1864 there were 3,818 persons in houses for the insane, but they do not regulate these institutions with the same strictness that prevails in some other countries, and they confine in them many of those criminals who would otherwise be let loose on the community to pursue their career of crime under the cloak of monomania. It would therefore appear, and there is no good reason to doubt the fact, that comparatively little insanity exists in Spain. One report of 1861 gives the following as the percentage of the cases, when pathologically classified: “Maniac exaltation, 31.91; monomaniacs, 11; melancholy, 6; derangement of mental faculties, 20.53; imbecility, 6.15; epileptic madness, 11; undetermined, 10.41.”

The medical faculty will understand this classification, but I do not know the difference between some of the sections into which the victims are thus divided. But when we come to the proximate causes of insanity, we are in a region level to the uninstructed mind, and here we find that moral and mental excitements growing out of love, such as jealousy and disappointment, are prolific causes: that physical ailments badly attended or wholly neglected frequently result in derangement; and the political turmoils of the State are followed by the same effects. But, on the other hand, there are at least three common causes of insanity in the United States, and probably in England also, that have a limited, if any, influence in Spain. These are religious excitements, haste to be rich, and intemperance in drinking. In Spain they take things easily. The people do not work the brain unduly in matters of religion or trade. The church takes care of the souls of the people: the law or the government excludes all disturbing elements that might come from the efforts of others to proselyte the people, and in their ignorance of any other way of getting to heaven than the church teaches them, they are quiet on that subject. Religion never made any one crazy; on the contrary, it has soothed the madness and healed the malady of many a crazed brain and distracted soul. But the wild and unenlightened excitement, begotten of blind fanaticism and erroneous teaching, has often driven men and women mad, as statistics of American insanity fearfully show. And in Spain there is not energy enough, not life enough, to make speculation dangerous in philosophy, morals, or even in money. I think it very unlikely that they will ever go wild after tulips, or mulberries, or petroleum. They are making railroads, but the French and English furnish the capital and send the engineers. And the great safety-valve, or rather the great preserver of the people’s intellects, is found in the fact that they are never in a hurry about any thing. The old Romans had a good motto, _Festina lente_, hasten slowly; but the Spaniards never _hasten at all_. They despise punctuality. An hour after the time when a positive appointment had been made with me, a man in Seville said, when I told him I had been waiting, “Why, the Queen never comes till an hour after the time announced for her arrival.” And this utter indifference to the value of time, which is money all the world over, begets, or is begotten, for it is hard to say if it be the cause or the effect, of that perfect sense of ease, content with one’s condition, idle carelessness, that dismisses all anxiety for the future. Such people do not go crazy.

And far above all other immediate causes of insanity in northern climes, is the use of spirituous liquors. The scholar drinks to keep up his mental fire, and when he becomes insane his malady is marked “excessive study.” The banker or merchant drinks too much, and when he is put into an asylum his madness is ascribed to his devotion to his business. The millions of our people drink, drink, drink,—and this vice of the north of Europe and of America yields thousands on thousands of cases of insanity every year. But in those countries where cheap wines, with little alcohol in them, are the common drink of the people, intemperance is comparatively rare. An English engineer, employing hundreds of men in building and repairing Spanish railways, assured me that intemperance is wholly unknown among them. The class of men who would be the most addicted to the vice with us in the United States, are here more temperate than any class of people in England or America. It is not to be supposed that this temperance is the result solely of the culture of the vine and the abundance of weak wine. It would be a false conclusion, from very inadequate premises, to infer such an idea. It is due in most part to the climate itself, which is at once favorable to the vine, and unfavorable to that elevation or excitement which strong drink begets. And in this delightful clime, where to live and breathe is a luxury, and to keep cool is at once a virtue and a joy, the heating stimulus of ardent spirits would not be sought as one of the pleasurable vices of the land.

Therefore, and to this conclusion we are easily led, the people here in Spain are not likely to be, as a general thing, insane. And if we of colder climes could be so humble as to take a lesson from poor, old, decrepit Spain, we might learn from these facts to moderate our desires, to pursue the good we seek with less haste and more speed, to use the world as not abusing it, and resting now and then, avoid the lunatic asylum on our journey to the grave.

At dusk we went to the station to take our departure from Toledo. In the train going up to Madrid was a large party of young men. Noisy, boisterous, rude, they cheered every lady who came to the cars, calling out to the good-looking ones to come to their apartment, and making sport of others; and all this with a freedom and indecorum that would not be tolerated even in our land of universal liberty. I was surprised both at their impudence and its impunity, and asked who the fellows were.

“Oh,” said Antanazio, “they are college boys: the same all the world over!”

Even so, I do believe.

Chapter VII.

La Mancha—Andalusia.

AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?”

It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain. I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no one pretends to _ask_ the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels, I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, “Smoking not allowed.” But nobody heeds it. An attempt to enforce it would probably lead to the sudden departure of all Spanish guests from the house. At the largest and best hotel in Madrid, sixty or seventy persons, ladies and gentlemen, were at dinner, (table-d’hôte), and in the midst of dinner, between the courses, gentlemen lighted their cigarettes, smoked them, and resumed their eating. Yet the notice forbidding smoking was in full view, or was until the clouds of smoke obscured it. In the reading-rooms of the hotels, oftentimes small and unventilated, nine out of ten are smoking all the time, and the thought never occurs to one of them that this may be a nuisance to others. I am told, that at the theatres in Spain, in the midst of the play, the audience smoke in their seats, and if any managers attain to such a moderate height of civilization as to publish a rule restraining the odious habit, the Dons of Spain pay no sort of attention to it. All attempts at reform end only in smoke.

I asked A